Video

Farewell

I have been home for five days now. It is alarming how quickly a year's worth of Mali can recede in such a short time; it already feels like a dream. I'm fighting to hold onto the experience through looking at pictures and putting up videos, but it still fades.

And so this shall be my last post to Pangolin Watch, over a year from the first. Thank you to all of you who avidly followed my adventures and to those of you who even checked in from time to time. It gave me a lot of courage in Mali knowing that there were people back home behind me. I hope this blog was as enjoyable to read as it was for me to write, seeing as it constitutes my journals for the year. So thanks for coming along on the voyage with me.

We had no pangolin sightings, unfortunately, but perhaps on the next adventure? Malaysia? We shall see.

Home at last

Well, that's it. I'm back in the US. It still is kind of hard to believe, since it just feels so normal, as if I hit the pause button on my life, went to Africa for a year, then came back and just resumed. Mali already feels like a world away, and yet I was there no more than 48 hours ago. It will take a little while to reconcile these two lives, I feel.

The trip went smoothly. Before going to the airport, I met Spencer and Jaimie at a wonderful restaurant right in the neighborhood of SIL called African Foods. Pretty generic name. But it was the best service I've gotten anywhere in Mali, and possibly some of the best, well, African food. I got a Cameroonian sauce of spinach and peanuts with plantains, along with my final Castel beer, which the waiter had to get next door since theirs wasn't cold. Just as I was done eating, I got a call on my cell phone from the embassy expeditor, who evidently had come to SIL to pick me up. Luckily, I had all my baggage with me, so the waiter just gave him directions and he picked me up directly from the restaurant.

Embassy expeditor is really an apt name. They do indeed expedite you through the airport process like some VIP, whisking you past authorities before depositing you in front of bag screening, the final step before the waiting room. I got a little teary sitting waiting for the plane. I mean, that was really it, it was over. But I felt giddy walking up the steps to the airplane. This was the longest time I'd gone without flying in years.

I watched the lights of Bamako shrink away as we took off. On the little flight locator map on the TV screen, I located my mountain by Douentza and watched as our digital plane glided past. Then I slept.

When I woke up, we were high above a glowing metropolis, somewhere in Spain, as my TV informed me. It was huge. We landed in Paris at dawn. Somehow in five hours' time, the Niger River had become the Seine.

I spent a relatively uneventful layover in Paris. I had my first little taste of culture shock, as I greeted the guy checking passports and asked how he was doing, in good Malian fashion, and he kind of laughed at me. I forgot that we don't really do greetings here. I did end up going through security and to the wrong set of gates, at one point. When we got in, the flight information for the Atlanta flight said terminal E only, no gate, so I randomly picked one of the two options and of course picked the wrong one, as I saw as soon as I got through security. No matter, I had time. The other unfortunate thing about Paris (and the US, I presume) is that you cannot exchange CFA at their currency exchange. Ridiculous! Now I have $60 worth of CFA just sitting around, being a souvenir. But my credit card hadn't been cancelled, so I got a pain au chocolat and some Orangina and celebrated the First World (even though you can find both of those things in Bamako).

They did security checks on our passports. The guy checking mine tried to swipe it, but lo and behold, it wouldn't swipe. He asked me if I'd put it through the washing machine. "No, just a bad bus ride in Mali."

The Atlanta flight was long, some 9 hours, and we didn't have individual TV screens. The main cabin screen played three movies, all of which I watched without sound (as I am wont to do), as well as several TV shows. I napped on my tray table some and continued to plow through Bill Bryson (which I finished on the Minneapolis flight). I was surrounded by my kinsmen at last. Americans are so boisterous. We're self-assured, we talk to strangers, and we just have a vibe about us that screams AMERICA. It's not a bad thing. It's just our culture, and it was funny to be confronted with it again.

It was a quick layover in Atlanta, just enough time to get through customs, recheck my bag, and get on the next flight. I was feeling a bit like a zombie at that point, but at least I was a homeward-bound zombie. At least it was a quick flight--only two hours; after the preceding 14-15 hours of flight, I was ready to be done.

Flying into Minnesota was a strange experience, not the least of which because it was unusually hazy. Hell, I could've been in Douentza for how much dust was in the air! It was due to unusual winds, winds that made landing a hair-raising experience. Once safely on the ground, I felt my excitement rise. I was really home. My parents were waiting at the bottom of the escalator to baggage claim, and oh, was it good to see them. I instantly felt more awake as we talked face to face for the first time in nearly 8 months.

We got some Mexican food for dinner (carnitas... pork... yes) and I unpacked some. Some things were broken in my luggage, but nothing irreparably. I skyped with Kevin on a real internet connection for a little bit then went to bed around 8:30 or 9. Jet lag so far hasn't been too bad. Yes, I got up at 6:45, which is unusual for me, but not totally unusual. I have a haircut today (much needed) and a dentist appointment tomorrow (not much wanted, but much needed). Time to start looking and feeling American again.

I will update once or twice more as I report on the adjustment process, but my friends, we are in the final stages of Pangolin Watch.

Saying my goodbyes to Mali

I’m sitting here watching the last bit of Malian light that I will see fade away. It’s incredibly surreal. It doesn’t feel real at all. Various strands of my life are coming together and blending as I prepare to close this chapter. Here I am, listening to classical Indian music, thinking about taking tabla lessons in Los Angeles while sitting in an apartment in the middle of Africa waiting for a flight through France to Minnesota. It’s just too much change to internalize right now.

But I successfully checked my baggage this morning. I showed up outside of the Air France office about five minutes before they opened at 10AM; mine was the first baggage checked. I am happy to report that I didn’t have any excess luggage fees or anything to pay and that I received my boarding passes without a hitch (except for the final leg to Minneapolis, but I’ll figure that out when the time comes). Afterwards, I went to the embassy one last time to cash a check (it’s always good to have an emergency reserve on you) and to watch Spencer’s presentation. He gave a nice presentation about his music research, including a screening of a video he shot to a Malian rap song about pollution and littering. It was pretty great.

Other than that, I’ve just been hanging out, playing free trials of computer games and reading my book. Unfortunately my internet has gone down at the time of writing this, but hopefully it’ll be back up so I can post it before I leave for the airport around 9PM. If you end up reading this Tuesday evening in America, it worked.

My Mali reading list

I've compiled a list of books that I'm currently reading, read, or started to read. I may have forgotten books somewhere in there, but here's the bulk of it:

Currently reading:
-A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

Books I’ve read this year:
-To Timbuktu, Mark Jenkins
-The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
-The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene
-Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris
-The 5 People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
-The Shack, William Young
-Keeping the Faith, Jodi Picoult
-Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Kim Edwards
-Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
-Demian, Herman Hesse
-The General and His Labyrinth, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
-Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter
-Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
-Making of a Chef, Michael Ruhlman
-Monique and the Mango Rains, Kris Holloway
-Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
-Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton
-Singing Neanderthals, Steven Mithen

Books I started but didn’t finish, with comments:
-Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter(about halfway through, it got into way too much computer science)
-Stones for Ibarra, Harriet Doerr (good writing, but I didn’t care about the characters)
-People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn (simply got interested in other books)
-Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse (had high hopes, but too dense to penetrate)

It was certainly nice having all of this time to do pleasure reading, something I had been seriously behind on for many years.

Les dimanches à Bamako

Today was a remarkably quiet day in a normally bustling city. I slept in until 11:00AM after an impromptu night of swimming at Matt's place. Immediately, I called Dave to see if we could arrange lunch. He said he and Antony were going out to Adonis, so I got dressed and hailed a cab. The cab driver had no idea where he was going and tried to charge me extra after we drove around for fifteen minutes looking for the restaurant; I staunchly refused. There was hardly anyone in the streets and very few cars on the bridges. I guess Sunday is truly a day of rest. Or rather, as blind musical duo Amadou and Mariam put it, "Les dimanches à Bamako, c'est le jour de mariage" (Sundays in Bamako, it's the day of marriages). I have probably spotted three marriages today.

I had an egg roll and a soda at Adonis before we went to the Campagnard (where I sat for 5 hours using the internet back in February) to drink more soda in their sweet, sweet air-conditioning. Eventually we parted ways, and I got into an even nicer and quieter taxi that took me back towards Badalabougou.

I'm coming to like Bamako. It's a haphazard city, like something thrown together from whatever the Creator had lying around at the time. Rubble heaps? Sure. Fruit stands with grapes? Why not. A big white stallion tied to the side of the road? Naturally. There are so many colors, so many smells (not all of them good), music blaring from taxis passing in a doppler blur, big saucy ladies perched on top of Chinese mopeds, and no shortage of runty goats pillaging trash piles or even a mango seller's table, if they aren't watching.

I came back to SIL and heated up the rest of my cabbage rolls for Lunch Round 2. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading, doing laundry, surfing the internet, and cat-napping in the humidity.

Two days left.

Living the nightlife

Last night, I was literally out until dawn. I wasn't even totally committed to going out at all, but at 10PM when Spencer said he was going to join some friends at a bar across town, I let myself be convinced to come along, so long as he came to pick me up in his taxi. When we got to the bar, called the Flamboyant, we found that there was to be a musical act that night. It started out with a couple of drummers, a terrible synthesizer playing recorded xylophone songs, and a bored-looking guitarist twanging out riffs with too much distortion. Paul and Marie were there, as well as people I didn't know: Jamie, a young woman working on a poli sci dissertation, Hillary, who teaches at a Christian school, Jacob and Owen, a couple pilots for a gold mine, and Matt, a teacher at the American school. Eventually some women started singing and dancing around, which made the music slightly more interesting, but not too much. Here is a sample:



After a while of that, people decided to move to a different bar, so we packed up in Owen's Jeep and went to a place called the Kora, which had pretty delicious wood-fired pizza. Nothing like pizza at 2:30 in the morning. Owen was ready to go home at that point, and I could have myself, but other people were scheming up plans to go to No Stress, the club Kevin and I went to on New Year's Eve. I was on the fence, but allowed myself to be dragged along. After all, it is my last weekend in Mali. The club was pretty fun, when they played music I knew. I did a lot of dancing and others drank from a bottle of whisky, but whisky at 3 in the morning sounded like the grossest thing I could think of. So I just danced. We stayed there almost until it closed; when we went downstairs at 5:30 to go home, the sun was rising. I haven't stayed out that late in a very very long time, but I'm pretty glad I did. I had a good time.

I came back to SIL and crashed until 12:30, at which point I ate the rest of my peanut sauce for lunch, checked my e-mail, then went back to bed. Tonight it was cabbage rolls stuffed with curried ground beef (leftover stuffing from the meat pies), and I also made a big batch of hibiscus juice (which is really more like tea, since you boil the flowers). (Pictures of this latest culinary endeavor have been added to the last photo album.) Some Peace Corps people are going out tonight, but I just want to stay in and read my book. Now that the Satanic Verses is done, it's on to a second reading of A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I decided tonight that I want to be Bill Bryson when I grow up.

Here is another video of Douentza as well, views down the main road into town:

Bamako photos

I will try to update this photo album as I get more pictures, so check back from time to time:

Pre-Ameriki Bamako

Bamako Zoo

Ever since the departure of Jeff and Abbie, I have basically been laying low, reading (almost done with Satanic Verses), surfing the web, and cooking. Today, however, in an effort to not go completely stir crazy, I went out to lunch with my friend Spencer. We hit up the Broadway Café, where I had one of their delicious cheeseburgers and a piña colada. Afterwards, we decided to brave the zoo.

We both expected the worst. I mean, Mali can't get a lot of its human life together, so how good could the zoo possibly be? While there were certainly depressing aspects, it wasn't as bad as we anticipated. First, it only cost 50 CFA to get in (about 10 cents). For that price, we weren't expecting much. But they had some nice enclosures with gazelles, artificial streams, storks, etc. There were also dismal cages containing baboons with hideously deformed rear ends or lone chimpanzees breaking your heart with their stares. There were cages of lions and hyenas, which are scarier in real life than you think they should be; I wouldn't want to meet a pack of them in the wild. One of the scariest parts of the zoo, however, was their serpent building, containing aquariums with vipers and pythons and other deadly snakes. I just don't trust Malian cages. We high-tailed it out of there pretty quickly.

As promised, there was indeed a broken tank containing a rotting manatee carcass. It was comically horrifying. I mean, why was it in such a tiny tank to begin with? Was it ever alive in there? Why didn't they dispose of the carcass? All questions calling for answers. But among the cooler animals were a panther, some ostriches, and the cutest little baby elephant, sadly without a mother.

We more or less enjoyed our visit, though, then went to the café at the national museum to get some sodas and hibiscus juice to cool off. Now I am back in my SIL purdah, back to the internet and my book. Not too shabby.

Pictures of the zoo trip shortly.

Rebirth in the city

Perhaps the recent rains were the catalyst, or perhaps some subtle cue from the shifting light, but the last twenty-four hours have seen the explosion of some delicate-winged species of insect. They hang in the air like cottonwood seeds, drifting harmlessly past as you walk. For others, their appearance is a celebration. Orange-headed lizards leap into the air to snatch them in their jaws; barefoot children swat at them with an old piece of cardboard; adolescent chickens peck at their fallen bodies. Their existence will undoubtedly be short. Twenty-four hours? Forty-eight? Long enough to lay the foundations for next year's rebirth. Then their wings will blanket the ground with a petal-like mosaic.

These insects are certainly more pleasant than some of the other bursts Mali's summer has to offer. Blister beetles waiting to excrete acid onto exposed skin, giant grasshoppers ramming into you as they hurl themselves towards the light, water scorpions just looking appalling (more like cockroaches)... But I will miss all of those. Instead, I just get the nymph-like insects going through their yearly incarnation.

Here's another video from Douentza, more of the market:

La vie bamakoise

First off, here's a video I took in the streets of Douentza driving out of my house:


Minkailou indeed arrived Sunday night, at around 1:30 in the morning. I had dozed off and felt like a zombie when he got in, but he got in safe and with my suitcase, so that's what matters.

The next morning, we went to the grocery store, where I stocked up on a week's worth of groceries: ground beef (which has unfortunately already spoiled), eggs, cereal, beans, flour, milk, yogurt, etc. Then we got produce at a little stand outside: potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, onions, bananas... I love Bamako. When we got back to SIL, he took me to the little boutique around the corner, where there is another woman who sells produce. I finished my kitchen stock-up there with lettuce, carrots, peanut butter, garlic and ginger. And then the boutique owners speak Fulfulde, so it's like I never left Douentza!

That afternoon, I went to the embassy to try and use their computer to insert some final fonts into my slideshow. When I got out of the taxi, I realized in horror that I'd forgotten my passport. I called the Public Affairs Officer, and she said I could get in with my driver's license, which (thankfully) I could. Unfortunately, after a lot of hanging out with Casimir, a Dogon who works at the embassy, and insulting a Songhay guy (since that's what Dogons do), it turned out that there wasn't any computer I could use. Fail. I went back empty-handed, but that's all right.

To feel productive, I made... meat pies! I saw the recipe in my Mali cookbook and felt the need to try it out. I amended the filling recipe a bit--curry ground beef with potatoes instead of beef and greens--but otherwise stayed true. Much to my disappointment, my yeast was dead, which I didn't find out until I'd made my dough and it didn't rise. But I folded them up and backed them anyway, like little curried beef-filled calzones. They looked beautiful and were quite delicious.

Around 8, Minkailou and I headed to the airport to meet Jeff. It had started to rain a little, and we had to wait for an hour in the rain for Jeff to get his bags and get out of the airport. It was good to see him, but strange as well, since it brought back a lot of memories from the summer. We went back to SIL and hung out for a little while before going to Amandine, Jeff's usual haunt, to stay awake until Abbie got in.

He asked if I was planning on coming back to Mali, and I said probably someday, but I wasn't about to make any plans before I saw where grad school took me. He seemed satisfied with that.

At 2AM, we got back into the taxi and headed back to the airport where we waited another hour for Abbie to get in. I was exhausted by then, having not slept too well the night before, and napped on the waiting room chairs for a bit. Abbie eventually got in just fine, and it was so nice to see her. She really is my "grande soeur". We chatted non-stop all the way back and stayed up until after 4AM chatting some more. Eventually, we both had to hit the hay, since my presentation at the embassy was the next morning.

9AM came early, and I rolled groggily out from under my mosquito net to prepare for the talk. I called Stephanie (the PAO) to make sure Abbie and Jeff could get into my talk, which she arranged. I headed over there myself around 11, wearing the same Dogon indigos that I wore to my presentation in Leiden back in August. Casimir and the Dogon tech guy, Timothé, met me and helped me set up my PowerPoint. Everything came through just fine.

People started to trickle in somewhere before noon. It was a pretty decent showing. The American ambassador even came! The PAO honored Jeff with an introduction as well and I launched into my talk, which had three goals. 1) Introduce the audience to what it is that you actually do when documenting a language, i.e., how do you learn a language for which no materials exist? 2) Introduce our Dogon Languages Project and what we're all about. 3) Talk about aspects of the culture I learned about through doing this work. People responded really well, both during my talk and during the question period afterwards. I felt really positive about it. Jeff even complimented me much later that night (I thought he never would).

We ate at the embassy (bacon cheeseburger) with my Fulbright friend Spencer, who had come to see my talk. Afterwards, we went back to SIL, where Abbie and I caught up and talked until we both crashed for naps. That evening, I worked through some receipts with Jeff, then we braved the then near-torrential downpour to get to Amandine for dinner. Abbie and I split an avocado salad, then I had Nile perch with bananas and broiled tomatoes. Yum. Not to mention another mango milkshake.

This morning, Abbie and I went out to Broadway Cafe to have brunch with Paul, another Fulbright that Abbie went to school with and had Bambara class with. It was fun, and I stuffed myself full of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. When we got back, it was time for her and Jeff to hit the road. She wanted to stay another day, but Jeff was weird about it and wouldn't let her. I saw them off to the bus station, then headed back. Jeff was uncharacteristically complimentary, telling me I had done terrific work this year. It made me feel really good.

I've been on a mission to make banana bread the last few days, but I can't get my hands on baking soda. Small stores here have no idea what it is, the pharmacy was out of it, and the big grocery was closed. I might try to go to another pharmacy later in the afternoon or to the grocery store. I just have all of these overripe bananas and nothing to do with them.

Three new photo albums

Here we are:

Solar panel installation

Final Douentza-area photos

Going away party

Coming soon: videos of Douentza and around.

Goodbye, Douentza

I am on my way home. I have already left Douentza, spent a night in Sevare, and made it to Bamako.

My party on Friday went well. A lot of people showed up, a lot of whom I didn’t even really know. But Fatimata was one of the first to get there and the last to leave, along with the two bartenders from the Tango, my tailor, the neighbor kid Hamidou, his dad, and my Peace Corps friends who were in town (Dave, Phil, Ashley). We ate goat and drank sodas at around 4:30, and just hung out in my courtyard listening to music, taking pictures and talking. I was quite pleased (and the goat was delicious).

Later that night, Oumar and Ashley and I went to the Tango for one last time. Dave and Phil were supposed to come, but they were “too tired”. Lame. I helped Minkailou import his pictures into what’s now his computer (and not mine), then went to bed.

I didn’t sleep very well. It was sort of the Christmas Eve syndrome—too excited to sleep well. I spent the morning packing and sweeping out the AC room. Ashley came over to help me, then around 10 am, we got ready to walk to the freeway to meet our transportation. I had to say goodbye to Ramata then, which was pretty sad. I wanted to just envelop her in a huge hug, but it’s not totally Malian. We held hands and grasped each other’s shoulders, and I think she was as sad as I was.

Hamidou walked with Ashley and I to the freeway, carrying my bag, as is respectful for someone who is leaving that you like a lot. Oumar came with my big suitcase on the moto after us. We ended up getting to the freeway much earlier than need be, but that’s okay. I was getting antsy sitting at home. About an hour later, the Peace Corps 4x4 drove up and we loaded our stuff. Ashley didn’t go—she was just saying hi to someone passing through in the car—but Dave and Phil went. I was saddest about saying goodbye to Oumar, since he was probably my best Malian friend here. You could tell he was really upset but couldn’t show his feelings.

And with that, we pulled out of Douentza. I just watched the well-known scenery slide by me, disappearing into the distance. The only time I cried was walking down my street leaving my house. The feelings are just too mixed. And I don’t think the reality of it has hit me yet.

The car ride was good. It was a little cramped, but much faster and much more pleasant than any Malian bus could be. When we got into Sevare, we went out and got lunch (yassa rice—rice with a delicious onion sauce) at a little place called Chez Damou. Afterwards, some people went to the bar, and I went and checked into the Mankante where I stayed last night.

This morning, I got up at 6 am and ate my delicious Mankante breakfast. Just as I was packing up, Phil called me to make sure I was on my way to the burea, since the bus was about to leave. I hustled over there (it’s just around the corner), and in the process accidentally took my room key with me. Oh well, I’ll send it back up with some PCV.

It turns out that in addition to the minibus, the 4x4 from the day before was also going down to Bamako. And we didn’t have that many people. This meant that there were five of us in a minibus meant to hold twenty, so we each had a row to ourselves. It was by far the best transportation experience I’ve had in Africa. I napped, listened to music, chatted with the volunteers, and watched Mali roll by. We stopped in San to get gas and then in Segou for lunch, finally arriving in Bamako around 4 pm.

As soon as my baggage got down, I hailed a cab and came to the SIL guesthouse. They gave me a room on the third floor, so I had to haul all of my luggage up the three flights of stairs. Not so great. Since it’s the weekend, the hostess’s office is empty, so I couldn’t ask for an internet access card. But I am crafty, and here I am on the internet now. First, I saw a young woman coming out of the apartment next door and I asked if I could borrow her access card, which she let me do. She’s an American who’s been here working with SIL for about three months. Perhaps we’ll chat more later.

I took my prize back to my apartment, ready for some quality internet time, only to find that there was no Ethernet cable. I gave up my internet dreams for a while and headed out for dinner at Amandine’s. When I was on my way out of the compound, I heard a woman greet the SIL guard in Tommo-So, of all things! I started talking to her in Tommo-So (much to her surprise and joy) and we chatted all the way until I found a cab. I think she might come by tomorrow and we might chat some more. Go figure that I come to Bamako, the city where I feel linguistically useless (since I don’t speak Bambara) and then I find not only a Dogon speaker, but a Tommo-So speaker. Who knew TS was such a useful language.

I had a mango smoothie and pizza for dinner, half of which I brought back for lunch tomorrow. I also brought back a couple croissants for the morning and an apple tart for later this evening. Mm mm, civilization tastes good.

Minkailou is coming in tonight (hopefully) with my other suitcase. That was when I realized that SIL had also left his and Jeff’s keys out, so I figured it was only questionably dishonest to take them and get the Ethernet cable from their apartment, which I did, and now I’m in business. Here commences my ten days of waiting until I come home. I will probably get pretty bored, but oh well, I can wait it out, since the light at the end of the tunnel is growing ever brighter.

Happy mother’s day!

Last full day in Douentza

Today is officially my last day at the Douentza internet. After hundreds of times of coming here, it’s now over. I will miss it nostalgically, but not technologically. I am certainly ready to move onto the greener pastures of Sevare, then Bamako, then the US.

We slaughtered my goat this morning. I was awoken at 7:30am, first by the sounds of “toobob, ca va?” out in the street, announcing the arrival of one of my friends, then by pounding on my door. When I opened it blearily, I was met first thing by the sight of goat carcass. Always a good way to start the day.

Fatimata came over to get the hide (she’s going to make a pillow out of it), and her mother was there too. I’m confused, however, because this was a different old lady than the one I met in Petaka. Perhaps it’s her mother-in-law? She was a wrinkly old woman with light skin and twinkling eyes. She gave me a bowl of eggs and a ring.

I gave Fatimata her presents: my bottle of ibuprofen, a necklace of mine, and 2000 CFA. I think she was quite pleased with all of it. They stayed until the liver was done being grilled, ate a few pieces, then went on their way.

Afterwards, Phil (the mystery toobob from earlier) and I packed the kitties into a basket, covered it with a sheet, and set out through the market to deliver them to Ashley. Poor things, they were so scared, trying to break out through the sheet. It was a stressful walk. When we got to Ashley’s, we let them out, and they looked around themselves in confusion. “Wait, this isn’t our house.” Well, soon enough it will be. I hope they’ll be okay.

Down to the final things to do—clear out the files on this computer so I can leave it for Jeff, give the rest of my presents, have a party. I think that’s about it. Oh, and clandestinely film the streets of Douentza. That’s also on the agenda. It’s off to Sevare tomorrow!

Mud puddles

Not much new to report, except that I only have 2 more days in Douentza! It was super hot yesterday, and then the skies opened up and it poured. It really was no relief—it just made it incredibly humid out and turned the streets into muddy messes. I spent all evening sitting in my room with the AC on reading the Satanic Verses.

I’ve been hanging out with Phil all morning. We got the pharmacy supplies for Tongo-Tongo’s pharmacy this morning, which concludes my school improvement mission. Again, thank you to everyone who supported that. I’ll get pictures up shortly.

Tonight Phil and I are going to the Norwegian missionaries’ house to watch their Fulani version of the Good Samaritan movie. It should be fun to see, since I read the screenplay. Besides, maybe they’ll feed us brownies. I can only hope.

I’ll write a final blog entry from Douentza internet tomorrow. Hard to believe.

Fiesta time

Our Cinco de Mayo party yesterday was a success. I cut up half of the sheep rump and cooked it up with peppers and onions to make fajita meat, and on top of that, we got some ground beef and made taco meat as well. Susan, Ashley and Phil made fresh tortillas, Dave prepared some Cajun style rice and beans, and I refried some additional beans to complete our Mexican smorgasbord. Oumar and Ely came over and got to taste Mexican food for the first time. They were quite pleased. We all ate our fill, drank some beers, and sat in the cement and stone “hot tub” at the Peace Corps house that they filled up with jugs of water. Altogether, it was a fun day of hanging out and eating good non-Malian food.

This morning I had a grilled mutton chop for breakfast; this is the sheep that keeps on giving. I’ve been starting to pack all morning. It’s starting to hit me that I’m really going home. I’m 90% glad about that, but every now and then I feel a twinge of sadness, mainly about leaving Ramata and Oumar, my closest friends here.

Steve and Ely left for Sangha before I got up this morning, and Minkailou accompanied them, so the house is rather empty. It feels like the end is approaching.

Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo. We’re having a party at the Peace Corps house later to celebrate. I made a batch of regular and mango salsa yesterday, and we have the rump left over from our sheep slaughter that we’ll grill/make fajitas with. But about the sheep slaughter.

Steve decided that he didn’t want to pay for his ram’s upkeep anymore while he was gone, so we should just slaughter it. The butcher came over in the morning, but I didn’t particularly want to start my day with blood and gore, so I just stayed in bed. After the carcass was taken away, I came out and Oumar was grilling the liver over some coals. He offered me some, but I declined. While I was making my salsa, the severed head was lying in the hanger looking at me. Creepy. But then Oumar took that away and grilled THAT over a fire. They all assure me that it’s delicious for breakfast. I have my reservations.

Susan and Rabayah got into town on Sunday evening, so they came over with Ashley in the afternoon yesterday and hung out while I made salsa. We invited them over for our feast later and went about our days.

The sheep arrived, along with all of our friends (Susan, Rabayah, Ashley, Dan, Dave, Phil, and Maia) that evening, and we feasted. It was delicious, as expected, especially the crispy outside parts. They stayed over drinking beers and listening to music until probably 10:30. The funniest part of the night was when this hell creature came tearing through our courtyard from inside of the house. It turned out to be Sami, who’d gotten a black plastic bag stuck on her like a cape, which she was trying desperately to run away from. She ran two or three extremely fast laps before diving into a room and hiding behind a bowl. I had to drag her out and get her unstuck, but she had given herself quite a scare (and us quite a laugh).

I found out for sure that I can get Peace Corps transport down to Bamako. Now I’ll be leaving Douentza on Saturday afternoon to go to Sevare, then we’ll leave Sevare early Sunday morning. I’m totally relieved. Not only do I not have to get on a terrible Malian bus, but I also get to travel with my friends. I got really lucky.

T – 4 days, about.

Santa Claus is coming to town

Yesterday was my last trip to the village, and it was full of mixed emotions.

We loaded up the car with all of our gear and all of our people (me, Minkailou, Oumar, Ramata, the school director, and the two electricians) and hit the road at around 7am. It was fun getting to drive that road one last time, since it was the road that originally led me to the village. We made good time getting there—only about two hours.

First thing, we went to the school and dropped off all of the supplies and the electricians so they could start working. Then we drove over to my house and dropped off all of the clothes and toys and other goods there. After that all got settled and I greeted some people, we walked back over to the school to supervise the installation.

The electricians worked swiftly and surely, filling up the battery with 12 bottles of acid (which children then washed out in a bucket of water… I sincerely hope no one will drink from those later), setting up the panels to charge, tacking up wires, etc. I walked around and filmed a bit as they worked and generally just observed.

Around noon, I wanted to go back over to the village itself and start looking through my stuff, but the school director told me to wait and eat, which I did, despite not feeling particularly well. Afterwards, Oumar and I went over and talked to Ramata, explaining to her how we wanted the chief to help us distribute the goods. I wanted to start going through things, but Oumar said that the installation was almost done and that we should go back to see the end of it. We trudged back over and waited maybe another two hours for the panels to be hoisted onto the roof and secured in place. It was certainly a rewarding moment when we hit the light switches and the lights came on: one fluorescent light in the director’s office, two in a big classroom, and one on the outside veranda. Now the students and teachers of Tongo-Tongo have a place to study at night, and the village as a whole has a place to hold meetings or training sessions at night without being in near darkness. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make that a reality.

When that was done, it was nearly 3 o’ clock, so I really needed to get back to the village and distribute the clothing people had sent for me to give away and some other gifts. It was slightly chaotic, as any distribution of goods can be, but the worst part was that I was being rushed the whole time. See, something apparently went terribly wrong in the car engine once we got there and it wouldn’t be able to get us back. The rental agency had sent another car to pick us up, and right when I had started distributing stuff, it got there and wanted to turn around quickly. Ultimately, I couldn’t spend the time I wanted to spend saying my goodbyes and giving things how I wanted to, but the most important goal was achieved, and that was to get those goods into the hands of the villagers.

I was pretty emotional driving back, just from the stress of the final hour and the knowledge that it was my last time. Unfortunately, the 4x4 they sent had to tow the other 4x4 all the way back over rough terrain, so we probably never got over 30 kilometers an hour. We did the final cliff roads right after sundown, which made me nervous, but when we finally got to the freeway, we ditched the stalled car and gunned it back into town. Altogether, it took 5 hours.

I slept ten hours last night and feel much better today. It’s hard to believe that that was the last trip. I’m in my final week now, so it’ll be a week of last times—last market day, last Monday, etc. But that’s all right, I’m so ready for it.

I think Ashley is going to take my kittens, or at least try to (hoping they don’t run away). They’re so affectionate these days. Sami is a first class kneader (cat owners will know what I’m talking about) and Pili still suckles everything, which is kind of gross but endearing. Then when they aren’t cuddling, they’re playing Ninja Cats. They love to play Ninja Cats, especially in the morning. That’s probably how Pili got herself into a bind; I heard her meowing but couldn’t see her, then I saw her little white paw sticking out from underneath an overturned clay water jar. She probably Ninja Jumped into it and rolled it over onto herself. Silly kitty.

Elephants, for better or for worse

Happy May! I come home this month!

Yesterday, we did indeed go to see the elephants, and what an ordeal it was. After I wrote the last blog entry, I ran into the guide again, and he said that we would leave at 5:30 instead of 6. That night, I cooked up split pea soup with Ashley and Maia, the British girl, then got sick later that night and threw it all up. I was afraid I would still be sick when I had to go see the elephants, but luckily my stomach was fine after getting rid of all of that delicious soup.

I got up at 4:45am when my alarm went off and got ready in the dark. At 5am, the rumbling of an engine announced the arrival of the 4x4 in front of our door. The guide was there, along with the driver and the owner of the car. I hadn’t wanted to give money for the gas up front, preferring to go with the station to make sure we actually got all the gas we were paying for, but that morning, they were like, “The owner says it takes 80 liters, so give us the money and we’ll go put it in.” I was sick of arguing, so I just gave them the money and asked for a receipt (which are all hand written and easily forged). In the meantime, I had to go pick up Maia on the motorcycle, since she lives across town. As I’m preparing to go, the owner and the guide are like, “Go quickly, we have to get going, don’t take a long time.” I just wanted to say, “Chill out, dude,” but their lack of English prevented me.

I drove my motorcycle over to the radio, where Maia lives, as dawn crept imperceptibly into the deserted streets of Douentza. The courtyard door was locked, which was to be expected; but no matter how much I knocked, the guard didn’t wake up to let me in. I was starting to get frustrated, having forgotten my phone, but then Maia came out and woke him up so she could leave. We got back to the house just as the car was getting back from the gas station.

Even then, as we were preparing, getting our final things together, the guide and owner kept hassling us about the time. When the guide was like, “This is how we do it in Africa,” I found a decent French equivalent of “seriously, chill out” because anyone who knows anything about Africa knows that hustle is not how they do it.

Finally, we were all piled in, with me sharing the front seat with the guide so I could stick my head out the window in case of emergency. We dropped the owner off at the freeway (what was he in such a rush for anyway?) then continued up the freeway towards Gao, that is to say, the opposite direction from Sevare.

I have to say, the drive up was the best part of the whole day. The sun, a hazy semicircle, was rising before us through the dust, flanked on either side by the surrounding cliffs. Seeing it made me want to get up early every day just to witness it.

We turned off of the freeway about 50 kilometers up and commenced our long journey off-road to where the elephants presumably were. A while later, we started seeing elephant poop, balls of grassy waste as big as your head. We arrived at a wooded area where the elephants are known to hang out, but alas, no elephants were to be found. When we asked a herder in the area, he said the elephants had left a while ago, and he pointed us in the right direction.

We arrived in a village with fresh elephant poop—apparently some had just passed right through the village not long before—where we picked up someone to show us the way. I might add that every time we stopped to ask for directions from someone, the guide felt the need to physically get out of the car, so I had to get out and let him out, then he always was kind of annoying and hesitant about getting back in the middle. Just outside the village, we saw two beefy elephants grazing in a stand of trees. They were pretty cool, but kind of hidden, and whenever you even wanted to approach a little bit, the guide would tell you not to. I understand—you shouldn’t get too close to wild elephants because they have killed tourists in the region before this year, and apparently if a tourist is killed by an elephant, the guide has to go to jail. But he was a little overprotective.

We looked at those two for a little while, then got back in to find the rest of the herd, apparently 20 or 30 animals. I switched out of the front seat at that point—I got sick of sitting next to the guide. The two hours that followed were some of the bleakest in the trip. We drove from where there was fresh elephant poop (not to mention two elephants) into the most depressingly empty landscape I’ve ever been in: sand, scrub, no birds, not even any cow poop, which is so ubiquitous everywhere else. I’m thinking, “This guy has no idea what he’s doing. Where on earth are we going?” To make matters worse, the engine would overheat about every forty-five minutes, and we’d have to stop and pour water on it.

Just when I’d given up all hope of ever liking life again, we got to a different bunch of trees, where the guide hopped out to go ask a herder if he’d seen the elephants. He motioned for us to come over from off in the distance, so we all piled out of the car with our cameras and picked our way across the cracked ground of a dry lakebed. When we approached, there was indeed a lone elephant taking a mud bath out across the lakebed. Then when we looked to the right, we saw a big group of them, maybe 35, bathing in a shallow lake along with a bunch of cows. Josh and Dan, the two American exchange students among us, were particularly excited and got closer than I thought was prudent. I was just hot, dehydrated (hadn’t brought enough water), tired (hadn’t slept well the night before), and only mildly happy. Yes, the elephants were cool, but the trip before was so harrowing and I’d already seen elephants twice before, so the happiness of seeing them couldn’t overcome my displeasure at the rest of the situation.

After a while of taking pictures, we headed back to find the car, which, in the meantime, had driven off to some unknown location. My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t swallow, and I was getting extremely grumpy with our guide, who’s like, “Oh, the car’s probably just behind that dune.” That dune was probably 100 meters away in direct sunlight.

Eventually we found the car, not over the dune, but the hood was up and the driver was dinking around with something. The guide told us to wait in the shade until they brought the car over, but finally it was taking so long that our desire for water outweighed our desire to stay in the shade, and we just walked over.

The drive back was awful. I was sitting in the far back, where the seats aren’t actually attached to the floor of the car, so every bump that the driver took too fast sent your chair flying into the air. The road was hot and sandy and long. Finally, we emerged on the road to Timbuktu at a village called Bambara-Maoude. I lost all faith in the guide when I asked him, “We’re north of Douentza, right?” and he said we were south. I knew we were north of Douentza. Timbuktu is north of Douentza. So clearly this village, along the way, also is. Really now.

Some people bought water and drinks for exorbitant prices, but I figured we weren’t far from Douentza, so I would just wait for something legitimately cold. It turns out, we were still 90 kilometers away on a terrible road. A few kilometers in, the guide asked, “Who knows how to drive?” and thinking it was just a question, I put my hand up. He told me the driver was tired and asked if someone else could drive. We all kind of looked at each other, unsure of whether he was joking or not. I said I knew how to drive stick shift, but not for a 4x4 vehicle on a terrible gravel/sand road. In the end, the guide was like, “Forget about it, it’s fine,” but then the whole way back I was not only hot and grumpy, but also afraid that our driver would fall asleep at the wheel, sending us tumbling down a sand dune.

We got back to Douentza at around 3:30, 10 hours after we set out. I gave the guide 6000, which he didn’t seem to pleased with, but he was a terrible guide, so I don’t care. After washing our faces and hands, we immediately set off on motos to the Tango for cold drinks. I stopped and got ice and sheep meat on the way, since I hadn’t eaten anything other than a couple of pieces of mango since the previous afternoon, considering none of my dinner stayed in me. We stayed there for about 3 hours, drinking soda and beer and either commiserating about the trip (Steve and I) or sharing the excitement of seeing elephants (Dan and Josh). Ashley didn’t come and Maia came later and remained largely neutral.

I went to bed at 9:30 and slept ten hours. Today I feel significantly more human. Tomorrow it’s off to Tongo-Tongo for the last time to install some solar panels, give out gifts, and say my goodbyes.

Off to see the elephants

I went to visit Fatimata this morning and her baby is doing much better. He’s not feverish anymore and has enough energy back to cry and be a brat about nothing. Ah, children. He’s very cute, though, and Fatimata looked worlds better after a good night’s sleep last night. An old man at her house who spoke French thanked me and thanked me and thanked me for all of the help yesterday, which felt good, but also made me feel uncomfortable, just since it took so little effort on my part.

Anyhow, tomorrow morning at 6am, we’re off to see the elephants. Apparently there’s a troop of 20 in the region, so hopefully we’ll find them. I’ll report back on Friday.

Saving babies (or something like that)

I had a relatively eventful morning, as far as mornings in Mali go. My friend Fatimata came over again, this time bringing her one-year-old baby boy. She had come yesterday and said that he was sick, so I told her to make oral rehydration salts and to come see me if he wasn’t better the next day. He wasn’t better. I packed them up on the back of my motorcycle and took them to the health clinic in town to get him checked out. He had a fever and diarrhea, and while I figured that it might just pass on its own, I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything happened, so it was better to just go to the doctor.

We waited for a while in unimaginable heat (today is awful), surrounded by other patients waiting their turn. I was afraid I would catch consumption there—people hacking, spitting, a young man with blood seeping from a pussy burn wound on his face. Malian streets are often horrific enough, so to condense the worst of the worst in one place had a nightmarish feel. Finally the doctor checked out the little boy and told us to get a malaria test. In the meantime, we bought paracetamol and anti-microbial syrups. All of that came to about $5. When I paid the 1000 CFA ($2) for the consultation, Fatimata was like, “Oh my my, this is so expensive.” It nearly broke my heart.

We went back to my house to wait for the test results. Ashley had come over in the meantime for me to take her to my tailor, which I did. When we came back, Fatimata had bought grilled meat and frozen sachets of ginger juice to thank me for all of my help. It was sweet.

She and I went back to the hospital a couple of hours later, as directed. Indeed, the child had malaria. We took the results to a doctor to get an anti-malarial prescription. I was shocked at how rude he was to Fatimata. First of all, a lot of the doctors there speak French and Bambara, but no Fulfulde, which is the major language of the area, so often I had to play translator between two Malians who couldn’t understand each other (and I barely speak Fulfulde!). But I was asking this doctor if we should continue the other syrup treatments we’d gotten that morning, and Fatimata presumably was asking the same thing, and the doctor snapped at Fatimata, in French, “I’m writing a prescription now! If you don’t understand what’s going on, you should just be quiet!” I wanted to hit him. It’s a problem here—people get educated and get nice jobs then think they are the boss of everyone else. Totally unprofessional.

Altogether, I spent maybe $12 on the treatment. Fatimata couldn’t stop thanking me. I certainly hope her little one gets better with these drugs.

Final stretch in Douentza

I got back safely to Douentza on Saturday evening. Before leaving, I took my final trip to the bank and closed down my bank account. I got a last minute ride with the German woman who owns the Mankante, but then had to wait for over two hours. Needless to say, I was glad it was my last time.

I had lunch with Seydou at the Teranga, then went over to see where he lives in Sevare. The family he stays with has a very nice house—nicer than ours in Douentza. I told him he was probably better off there.

I didn’t have to wait long at the bus stop this time; a Sonef bus came maybe a half an hour after I got there. In the meantime, Seydou and I talked to this young medicine street vendor, who by talking to various tourists acquired an impressive amount of knowledge about the world. When I got back to Douentza, Steve picked me up and took me to Dave’s house, where Dave had made a sheep meat chili. It was delicious. We hung out for a little while before I went home and crashed.

Yesterday was election day here, and as a consequence of that, the market was nearly empty; everyone stayed in their villages to vote. I’m still waiting to hear about the election results for Tedie to see if M. le Maire is indeed M. le Maire once more. I did some work with Ramata and helped Steve out, then sat around in the evening with Josh as he made tea. All in all, not a bad day.

I helped Steve with a bit of work this morning, then Fatimata came over to hang out. She fixed up my Tamasheq garment better, and I’ve since been wearing it all day. I figured, why the hell not? I don’t have much longer in Africa, might as well go African. Except that I’m probably the only “Tamasheq” woman ever to wear jeans under the wrap and drive a motorcycle.

After lunch, I went to Ashley’s, where I helped her translate some French. I’m counting down my final two weeks here—one more market day, one more full Monday left. I’m thrilled. On Wednesday, we might go see some elephants, which would split up the week nicely. Then on Saturday, it’s off to install the solar panels. I’ve bought all of the materials now for that project and will use the rest of the money to buy notebooks and other school supplies. I’ll be sure to take lots of photos.

Sevare ice cave

I am currently in Sevare enjoying my AC—it is quite wonderful. Josh and I left the house on foot at 6am yesterday morning and got to the freeway nice and early. We bought tickets for the Binke bus and had time for a fried egg sandwich while we waited. It came around 7:30, probably, and was kind of slow-going, but it’s better than taking turns at break-neck speeds, like Sonef buses are wont to do. My bus seat was not attached to the bus very well, so I felt like I was in a motion simulator a lot of the time. On top of all that, we got pelted by a fine rain of couscous from the open vent above us. All very mysterious.

I wanted us to hop off the bus before the main intersection in Sevare as opposed to going all the way to the bus station, since that would be a longer walk to our respective destinations (Mankante for me, the bank for Josh). After we passed through the police checkpoint for Sevare, a little ways up the road, the bus slowed down to let some people off, so I figured that was our stop. I figured wrong. We probably got off the bus about 2 kilometers outside of Sevare and ended up having to walk a lot farther in the dusty wind than if we had just gone to the station. Oh well, we got our exercise.

We parted ways at the main intersection and I carried on to the Mankante, where I got checked in. I had the choice of a room with a personal bathroom in the villa down the road where the wireless might not reach or a room with a bathroom next door in the main villa. After some debating, I took that one, and the internet has been working great. The AC is also rather arctic and nice.

I hung out and took a nap before lunch, then grabbed some spaghetti at the Mankante restaurant up the road. Right next door to the Mankante is a gift shop/bead museum run by a guy known as Peace Corps Baba. Abbie lived in the apartment above it during her third year of Peace Corps, so I decided to go in and check it out. I told the guys sitting there that I was Abbie’s colleague, and they instantly started exclaiming about how she was their sister, same mother same father, and now I was welcome as well. They all speak English, presumably since they travel the world to show at bead expositions and cultural shows. One of the guys showed me the bead museum then helped me look around the shop, where I was given good “sister” prices on the things I wanted to buy.

I left in a good mood and went back to the hotel, where I skyped with people until it was Bollywood party time. Bollywood party could have been better. I became head chef rather quickly, but the preparations were riddled with small disasters—not the spices I was used to, rice paper to make the samosas in instead of homemade dough, the lentils burned a little, the rice paper split open in the oil… it was rather frustrating. On top of that, there were something like nine or ten people there instead of the three originally planned. That’s fine, the more the merrier, but it diminished the intimacy a bit. Rabayah wanted people to watch Dil Chahta Hai, one of my favorites; since it is a three-hour-long movie, I told them to just start it while I finished up the food.

Despite the mishaps, the food was fairly tasty. I watched a little bit of the movie, then went to skype with Kevin. Afterwards, the movie still wasn’t done, but I decided to go back to the hotel and go to bed before it got any later. I have to go back over and retrieve my movies today.

With the Mankante being a bed and breakfast, I get my morning meal provided, and it was quite delicious. When Kevin and I stayed here, we just got tea and bread with jam and butter, but this morning I got all of that plus an omelette and a big plate of fresh mango and papaya. The guys working here are Dogons, so I talked to them about that for a while. There is really a friendly atmosphere at this place; everyone calls me by my first name and is really helpful, not to mention the lovely courtyard with flowering trees and four large tortoises.

Today I’m just going to take it easy and read and do some work in the AC, then tomorrow I’ll probably go to the bank in the morning, see Seydou for lunch, then go back to Douentza in the afternoon/evening.

Rolling blackouts

I am now thoroughly rested up from my Ngouma trip and back to the rhythm of Douentza. Work with Steve in the mornings is beginning to go faster as everyone gets used to the language and working style, and we’ve taken to going to the Tango in the afternoon for a cold beer or soda escape.

This morning, my bread guy Ibrahim took me to a shoemaker’s place to measure my feet, since he wants to give me sandals as a present. He also gave me a couple of beaded necklaces. I can never be sure whether such gifts are purely from good will or if it’s fishing for monetary gifts later. Either way, it was nice.

Part way through the morning, I got a call from Josh, an SIT study abroad student we’d crossed on the road to Sangha. He said he was coming into Douentza and needed a place to stay, so I went and picked him up and brought him back. Unfortunately, Salif rolled up unannounced last night, so we are out of mattresses, but Nicolas said he could stay at his house. We’re going over there for dinner tonight—probably one of the last times I’ll see Nicolas, seeing as he will be leaving for Benin on Saturday (after I’ve already left for Sevare).

It’s been hot as blazes the last few days, made worse by the fact that we’ve had rolling blackouts. The power has always been back on at night, so between AC and fan, I can sleep well, but sitting inside during the day working, we just swelter. I’m looking forward to two solid days of AC in Sevare.

Ngouma

I have made it to Ngouma and back and have lived to tell about it. So tell about it I shall.

I packed up my motorcycle with my gear and left the house after noon on Friday. I decided it would be prudent to stop at the internet and write down my Medevac numbers before I left, just in case of an emergency, so I did. Nicolas and I got on the road shortly after one o’ clock, reveling in the open freeway.

We did about 60 kilometers on the paved road before turning off on the road to Ngouma, a gravel road with quite a few dips and holes. The most annoying aspect of the gravel road, however, is the washboard effect. I don’t know how, but heavy trucks repeatedly going over it create stretches where the road becomes like a washboard, rattling your bike and your spine and being generally unpleasant/impossible to drive on. Between those stretches and the occasional pothole, the road kept us on our toes.

Luckily, we had no problems and arrived in Ngouma a little before 4PM. We asked the first person we saw to take us to Ousmane Diallo “the white guy” (Phil’s Malian name), and someone did. He has quite a big house with 4 rooms on a nice courtyard. The only problem is that he shares a main gate with another house’s courtyard, and his neighbors (especially the kids and the ten-year-old brides who aren’t allowed out) are always peering over the wall calling his name, like some sick version of Home Improvement. Kids here can be extremely annoying.

We dropped our stuff off, then Phil took us out on a greeting tour of Ngouma. It is quite a big town, with a central market and everything. Yes, I would say it has definitely achieved town status instead of village status. Nicolas and I waded our way through Fulfulde greetings (Ngouma is a Fulani town) and saw what sights there were to see, including a big beautiful mosque. We didn’t get any pictures, though, since the imam was demanding 1000CFA for a picture. Ridiculous.

We hung out in his courtyard with our goat captive (more about him later) until his host family called him over for dinner. It was rice and fish sauce—not my favorite, but tolerable. By the nightfall, we were exhausted and went to bed. Phil gave me his mattress on the roof, Nicolas spent an uncomfortable night in the hammock, and Phil himself slept on a mat on the roof as well. It was very windy and downright cold by the middle of the night, but luckily I’d brought a fleece blanket. I tucked myself into that and slept relatively comfortably.

Saturday was spent lazing around. It felt good to just be out of Douentza with no obligations. If I wanted to sit there and stare at the dirt all day, gosh darnit, no one could stop me. Nicolas made an effort to speak English with us all weekend and did relatively well, just asking for translation help every now and again. He, Phil and I turned out to be a good trio.

After a breakfast of rice fritters and leftover fish sauce (which I did not partake in), the butcher came over to send our goat on its way to goat paradise. Or so I hope. If you don’t want to know about the goat slaughter, skip the next paragraph.

Phil and the butcher held the goat down, facing Mecca, as is custom. The butcher uttered a blessing then slit its throat. Blood is so red. The initial throat-slitting is the worst part of the slaughter, since you have to hear the breath rasping through the throat and watch as the legs struggle and kick long after the animal has probably lost consciousness. Eventually, the goat was properly dead, and the butcher got right down to skinning it. Eventually, the slung it up by its back legs to get the rest of the skin off, and that’s when the grossest thing happened. It was as if the stomach couldn’t retain its contents anymore and the goat vomited through the whole in its neck. Mega mega gross. The butcher cleaned and removed all the organs and quartered the carcass, then carried it off to grill it. He’d gone and washed all the organs in the bucket Phil uses to bathe, so we had to go to the market and get some bleach for that. Rather unsanitary.

Anyhow, we sat around the rest of the morning, waiting for Meat Round 1 (lunch) to be prepared. We went over to his host family’s again for that, where his host woman had made a meat sauce with one of the quartered sections and a lot of the innards. Neither Nicolas or I could stomach (haha) the insides, but we ate some of the “normal” meat, which was delicious. After eating, his host man sat around forever making tea and talking in Fulfulde. I was tired and bored; eventually Phil picked up on that and took me back to his house so I could take a nap.

The rest of the meat came in a tub around 6 o’ clock. His host came over and we feasted. It was tender and delicious, and we all ate until we could barely move. Even then, there were two whole legs left. One his host packed up in a box and told us to bring to Douentza (slightly unsanitary?), and the other he saved and we had it in the sauce for breakfast. Phil disappeared for a while after dinner, delivering meat to various friends, so Nicolas and I hung out in the dark chatting. When he got back, it was off to bed. Again, it was windy and cold, but a nice change from the heat of the day.

Nicolas and I got going after breakfast this morning. We did about 3 hours on the road again, an exhilarating but exhausting drive. Luckily, no one got hurt. I’m just happy about that. It was a good trip all in all, and now if Phil talks about Ngouma, I’ll know what he is talking about.

Heat showers

Work is progressing little by little. We’re getting into some grammatical topics (noun phrase constituents, transitive sentences, commands, etc.) and getting used to one another. It’s always a slightly awkward situation, bringing the person you work with to come live with you, since you feel a lot of pressure to keep working with them just to keep them entertained, even if what you need is to stop and analyze some recordings or review your data. I’m trying to step back from that as much as possible, since it’s not my work, thus it’s not my responsibility. When Steve wants to work with Ely, I’ll be there for him, and when he doesn’t, that’s his choice; it’s not my responsibility to keep his assistant busy. Besides, I still have my own work to be doing. I’ve been typing the texts I transcribed with M. le Maire into my computer, and I’m going to work on translating them with Ramata a bit this evening.

The last couple nights, Steve and I went to the Tango to watch the soccer games that were on TV. I know nothing about soccer, but Dan evidently follows it and invited us out. It was actually pretty entertaining, especially listening to the Malians get really into it. There was this one man in a nice boubou who would stand up and shout “Eh?? Mais c’est pas possible!” (“but that’s not possible!”) whenever someone missed a goal. Steve likes to have a beer in the evenings, so we’ve been frequenting the Tango. I, however, have had my fill of beer and currently content myself with grapefruit soda.

It’s been really hot and muggy the last couple of days, with little heat thunder storms rumbling overhead. Apparently it even rained a bit last night. The humidity makes the heat quite nearly unbearable. Whereas with dry heat, your sweat evaporates pretty much as soon as it emerges from your pores, with this humidity, you’re just sticky all the time. All the more reason I’m excited to go home.

Either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday morning, it’s off to Ngouma with Nicolas. I think it’ll be a fun trip, one of my final huzzahs on the motorcycle.

Back from Sangha

Yesterday was quite the Dogon adventure. I got up as the sun was rising to get ready for our trip (and prove to Minkailou that I am capable of getting up early). In fact, I was probably the first one ready to go. We finally got on the road around 7:30 in our rented 4x4, stuffed full by Oumar, Minkailou, Steve, the driver and myself.

The road, of course, was non-existent, just a sandy track weaving between scrub bush and rocks, but the scenery was nice. We were in good spirits, even when the car overheated once or twice from trying to plow through sand and we needed to toss water on the engine.

Around 11:30, we pulled into a village called Banani, a touristy village located down the cliff from Sangha. There we stopped to eat lunch, relieved to peel ourselves from the stuffy car. Minkailou helped Steve and me bargain our way to souvenirs while we waited for the food to get ready. It was kind of fun to see all the “quintessential Dogon stuff”, but at the same time, I’m glad to not work in a tourist destination.

The villages themselves along the cliff are beautiful, though. Granaries with thatched conic roofs, carved doors, and then most striking of all, the old Tellem settlements nestled high into the cliffs themselves. The Tellem were the inhabitants of the area before the Dogons. They built their houses directly into crevices and overhangs in the rock face, protected from the elements and invaders. If you ask the Dogon how they were able to get up there and build, they will tell you that the Tellem had very long arms. They would have to be at least a hundred meters long to build in some of those places.

After a lunch of couscous, we stopped being tourists and got down to business. The drive up the cliffs to Sangha was one of the more hair-raising trips I have been on here. The driver took these hairpin curves on broken roads at break-neck speed. And mind you, there was no guard rail between you and a rocky plummet. I was praying all the Arabic prayers I knew on the way up (al-Hamdu li-lAh il-rabb al-‘alamina), and hey, they got us there okay.

Sangha is a huge village compared to any others I’ve been in. Its blossoming is largely due to Marcel Griaule’s work there and the awareness he raised for the village. Afterwards, it was missionaries and now NGOs, the 21st century missionaries. There’s electricity in the main village and nice hotels (nicer than Douentza) and schools, etc. I was quite shocked.

We found the people Minkailou had contacted about finding us someone for Steve to work with. We sat down in his house and eventually this big guy came in with a young man with dreadlocks. I guess they had originally proposed the big guy, but since it’s election season here, he doesn’t want to leave the zone, so he proposed his brother. That was all fine and good, but when we (and by we, I mean I, since Steve doesn’t speak French) explained the work and proposed our usual 3000 a day price, the young man told us he wanted 15,000 a day, the price he apparently charges as a guide. This threw us for a loop. We didn’t know he was a guide. 3000 a day is a very reasonable salary for our work. Oumar can work a full day of construction, hard manual labor, and make 2000. But tourist prices are not Malian prices.

I called Minkailou out of the room to talk to him about it, then Steve. I had my reservations about working with a guide in general, afraid that if he started off asking15,000, what other luxuries would he expect that we can’t afford? We decided finally that if we could get him down to 4000 plus his food and lodging, we would bring him back, but if not, we’d just figure it out in Douentza.

We proposed this new price and after a bit of discussion amongst themselves, the men present agreed. We were beginning to suffer from the oppressive heat, so we went over to one of the hotels and got cold drinks while waiting for everyone to finish up their preparations or their tea drinking.

The trip back felt like it was 3 times longer than the trip there. It was still hot, still bumpy, still sandy, and the car probably broke down 3 more times. I had to sit in the middle of the backseat, so I couldn’t even lean on anything. By the time the sun went down and we were still on the road, I was incredibly grouchy, so I just put in my headphones and checked out until we got home.

This morning, Steve and I started working with Ely, his assistant. It’s fun for me to start working a bit on another Dogon language, since it is proof of how much I’ve learned in this year. So much is familiar, both vocabulary and grammatical points, but there are still interesting differences. I can’t hear this guy’s tone very well at this point, but hopefully that’ll come soon. I think we were all a bit frustrated throughout the morning, but I think it’s just a matter of getting used to the working situation. Ely will get used to us asking him to repeat things a bunch of times, I’ll get used to having to play translator and keep it slow, since Steve has just started Dogon, and Steve will learn to speak some French and get his ear attuned to the new sounds. I think we’ll get good work done in the month I’m here, and then he’ll be ready to keep going on his own.

Business trip to Sangha

Steve is getting settled in nicely. It’s great for me to have someone around to talk about Dogon linguistics with—I’m already feeling more inspired. I think this last month will be spent largely helping Steve with his work, since in all likelihood, he won’t find an English-speaking consultant and he doesn’t really speak French. I guess he’ll learn as he goes.

On Monday, we’re renting a 4x4 and going to Sangha to find him someone to work with. I’m going to come along as translator/tourist. Sangha is ‘the’ Dogon village, where Marcel Griaule did his ethnographic work in the first half of the twentieth century. When tourists come to Mali to go to Dogon country, Sangha is always an essential stop. I’m glad to have an excuse to go now.

I most likely won’t be at the internet again until that trip is over, but I will write all about it when I’m back.

Delayed return to Douentza

Well, getting back to Douentza turned out to be a fiasco. I left Mopti around 11:30 on Thursday and ran into Rabayah coming out of work on my way to the taxi stand. We exchanged a few words, lamented about our cancelled Bollywood party, then I headed back to Sevare.

The bush taxi stopped right in front of the post office, and conveniently, my new laptop battery had gotten there. I took care of that while Seydou came over to meet me for lunch. We went to the Mankan Te and had a very pleasant lunch. Afterwards, he dropped me off at the Peace Corps bureau around 2, and Dave and I went together to the bus station to try to get up to Douentza.

Overall, we waited for over 4 hours. I wanted to get on an earlier bus than Steve and Minkailou were coming up on so that I would be there before they got to Douentza, but every bus that came through was full. Finally, the bus they were on got in, and the guy had sold us tickets for that bus, but that too turned out to be full and they refunded us. I at least met Steve at the bus station and told him I would try to be up as quickly as possible.

I was really bitter after that bus left. Dave and I waited around for a while then decided it would be just as easy to go in the morning, since it was too late to get up there before them anyways. I was in a bad mood about that, having cancelled my plans to get up there that night, and yet here I was staying again, yet without Bollywood. Anyhow, we went back to the bureau, and after a little while, he and I went out and got street food for dinner before meeting up with some other volunteers and some army guys at a bar. I wasn’t really in a drinking mood, but since I didn’t want to walk back alone, I got stuck out until 1:30 in the morning in a very terrible mood. When we finally went back, I skyped a little while with Kevin to vent then went to sleep on the roof.

This morning, Dave and I walked to the bachet (like mini-bus/vans) station and got the last couple seats in one leaving for Douentza. The problem is that they pack these things to the brim: 5 people for every 4 seats, and there is minimal ventilation, and they go really slowly, and are generally extremely uncomfortable. This ride was no exception. It took three and half hours to get up to Douentza, an hour longer than it would’ve taken by bus.

I was glad to get in and finally get to talk with Steve, though. He’s a nice guy and I’m glad that I’ll have him around. I’ll probably help him get started with his work on Sanga-So in the next few days, so that should be interesting. He’s probably a bit overwhelmed by French and the new surroundings for now, but hopefully he’ll get settled in soon.

Feasting in Mopti

Greetings from Mopti! Tuesday morning, I took the bus down to Sevare to hang out for a couple days with no solid game plan. I felt empowered going it alone, though, and playing it by ear. For instance, I knew to get off the bus before the Sevare bus station, since the walk would be shorter, then walked to a restaurant called Mankan Te that I like, had lunch, then set off for the Peace Corps bureau. I ran into Dave and Braxton en route, who were surprised to see me there. We went back together and I camped out on the internet basically all day.

We tried to go out and get pork that night, a rare commodity here with Mali being a Muslim nation. Unfortunately, however, no pork was to be found. We ordered chicken, though, and I got mine with salad, after the brutal shock the night before when I found out that the salad had officially finished in Douentza.

The chicken was delicious, char-grilled with some sort of spicy mustard sauce. In the end, it was probably better than the pork would have been. Plus they gave me my salad for free.

I was naughty and slept at the Peace Corps bureau that night. You’re not supposed to, but everyone does it anyway. I wanted to use the internet until late into the evening, and I didn’t feel like going out and finding somewhere else to stay. I certainly wasn’t alone, though—all of the mattresses were occupied.

I made a fried egg sandwich for lunch yesterday before heading out for Mopti. I was supposed to go with Rabayah, but she wanted to go swimming in Bandiagara, since there was a Peace Corps car already going there today. I don’t blame her. I decided to just live it up and be a boss and hire a taxi to take me to the hotel as opposed to walking through the heat to the bush taxi stand. I think it was a good choice.

Most of the afternoon was spent on the internet and napping. It was while chatting with Abbie that I learned that Steve and Minkailou are planning to go to Douentza today, not on Friday, as previously planned. This put a serious kink in my Bollywood party plans. Rabayah, Susan and I were going to make samosas and watch Bollywood this evening, but now I have to go back to Douentza, since most of the keys are in my possession.

I was bummed, but then I Skyped with Kevin for a while and decided to go out to a nice dinner. I went to a place called the Bissap Café, on the waterfront. It has one of the nicest atmospheres I’ve felt at any restaurant in Mali. It has multiple seating areas—a garden terrace, a room where light shines through thick slabs of desert salt, and a rooftop terrace overlooking the street and the river. I opted to sit up there and watch the world go by.

It was very peaceful. I could gaze out across the port, watching the reflections of streetlights ripple on the murky water, serenaded by a chorus of bullfrogs. In between courses, I read my Discover magazine with the top 100 science stories of 2008 that Chev sent me for my birthday. All in all, I spent $20 on myself: a chocolate shake with cointreau, a wood-fired ground beef and ham calzone, fresh fruit sorbet, and a glass of hibiscus (bissap) juice. I figured if I couldn’t get my Bollywood party, I could at least treat myself to a nice dinner. It was fabulous.

Anyhow, it’s back to Douentza today. I’m looking forward to meeting Steve and getting him settled in. It will be nice to have a colleague around to talk to.

The latest photos

Here is the latest album, with pictures from my trip to the village, my trip to Petaka, and my chicken feast:

Village fun

Chicken vomit

I had a really good day yesterday. In the morning, Nicolas came over, and we went to the market together to pick up some lunch fixings. We went back to his house and cooked up pasta with fresh tomato sauce, an easy but delicious classic. For dessert, we had mangoes, which are beginning to come back into season. We hung out for a while and talked about life and work and being in Mali, then I went back to get some work done.

I had been in my room for maybe a half an hour when Oumar came to tell me that Fatimata had sent somebody to see me in the morning after I’d gone out. We puzzled over what that could be about, but figured we’d just go see her the next day. Not five minutes later, I get a knock on my door, and it’s Fatimata herself. I greeted her and we went to sit down together in the shade of my hanger. I called over Oumar to act as translator. (My Fulfulde is definitely not yet conversational, unless the conversation only consists of me saying ‘I only came to greet you’ [jowtude ma tan waddi am] or ‘If I am here, I will come’ [so mi wonii gaa, mi wartan].)

She pulled out a small cloth bundle and handed it to Oumar. He unwrapped it to reveal a crude horseman statue in weathered iron. The horseman is seated on a Tuareg style saddle with a turban, but the horse has no legs and the features are otherwise obscured either by simple work or age. She said that her brother’s motorcycle had broken down between Bandiagara and Bankass, and while he was looking around for a stone to pry his tire off with, he found it in the dirt. She had no idea what it was, but if I wanted to buy it, she would sell it. I held it in my hands and it *felt* old. I don’t know how, but it just did. I figured, sure, why not, either it is something legitimately old (I think I’ll get it appraised in the US) that maybe a collector wants, or it’s just a curiosity, but either way, I have no problem giving my friend $15. She’s always giving me things, after all. In fact, just the day before, Oumar gave me a little paper package containing a ring Fatimata’s brother had made for me. It’s beautiful: copper with a silver vine-like inlay.

Anyhow, after I agreed to buy it and she took a necklace of mine to fix, she told me that her mother was in the area, in a village called Petaka, about twenty minutes the highway. She really wanted to introduce me to her mother. I agreed whole-heartedly, and twenty minutes later, she and I and her baby son were on my motorcycle, on our way east up the freeway.

As with any village you go to, it is the children first who are fascinated with you. They looked at me in awe and a couple little girls held my hand for a while. We went back into the village and sat down on mats until Fatimata’s mom came over, a woman of about 65, I would guess. We took some photos while the children squealed in delight, then Fatimata ushered me back to a little mud house.

When I stepped into the doorway, I saw a large woman with huge bare breasts giving an enema to a newborn baby girl. The umbilical cord was still tied off and everything. I must have been visibly shocked at the whole thing, since Fatimata was laughing at me, saying something along the lines of how amazed I was. She took the baby into her arms and I took a picture. Then she handed it back and told me to take a picture with the mother. Only in Mali can a total stranger take a picture of a bare-breasted woman and her child and have it not be awkward.

I sat for a little while longer on the mats, then Fatimata came back to show me the road. She brought with her a live chicken, hanging dazed and upside down from a cord around its legs. She held it out to me as a gift. I didn’t know quite what I would do with a live chicken, but I graciously accepted it, and she slung it over my motorcycle handlebars. With lots of waving and goodbyes, I hit the road on my own, enjoying the freedom of not having a passenger with a young child on the back of my motorcycle.

The whole way back the chicken vomited or slobbered on my bare calf. It was gross and I wanted to be mad, but hey, if I were slung upside down off of a motorcycle I would probably be vomiting too.

Since I was already up on the highway and I didn’t want to weave through the market with a chicken on my motorcycle, I stopped at Nicolas’s house. I showed him the chicken and suggested that we just eat it. We both hesitated for a little while, not knowing entirely how to go about that, but then Nicolas said he would just slaughter it. How hard could it be, right? He took the condemned around the house and slit its throat, like we’d seen done numerous times here before. It’s harder when you’re the one doing it though.

I told him I’d go to the market and get some condiments while he plucked it. I decided to try and make a peanut sauce with plantains fried in ginger and chili on the side. With Oumar’s help, I found everything I needed. I’d also recently ordered a small mortar and pestle to be made, which had arrived the day before, so I brought that over to pound my ginger and garlic into a paste. Really, I just wanted an excuse to use it.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, but everything worked out. Oumar came over and ate with us a while later, and everything I made was a hit. The chicken was good (couldn’t be fresher), the sauce had just the right amount of spice, and the plantains were delicious, as plantains are wont to be. Truly, I was quite pleased with myself. We sat around chatting until almost 10 before I went home.

I got bit by a spider while putting my mosquito net down last night, but I beat it to death with an empty soda bottle, and my hand never swelled or hurt. Then the kittens woke me up at 5:45 in the morning, crying at my door before jumping up and crawling in through a hole in my screen. Stupid kittens.

Tomorrow I will indeed go to Sevare, probably in the morning. I’m envisioning three nights. I figure that’ll be good, and I can get back here before Steve does.

Festing and resting

This village trip, while fun and not too long, was not quite what I expected. Oumar and I left bright and early on Thursday morning and got to the village by 10:30. I was thankful that the hike was not as hot as I expected it to be.

My house was all swept and stocked with water, since Ramata had gotten there the day before and knew I’d be coming. I greeted people as they trickled in, par for course. It was then I was told that the festival hadn’t started on Tuesday, as I had previously been told, but rather started the next day, Friday. I figured this was no problem, since I would still get to see a dance either way.

The millet beer started early. In fact, my first stop in the village after my house was Ramata’s grandmother’s house. This little old lady makes all of the beer for the whole village. Needless to say, she is a popular destination for young and old alike. We sat around in the dim light, surrounded by clay jars full of fermenting millet beer, and passed around a gourd-ful ourselves.

Afterwards, I went with Ramata to her mother’s house. She was glad to see me, as always. Ramata’s older brother Oumar had gotten back from Cameroon, where he had been for at least three years, so his wife seemed to be happy. I must have given her some sort of knowing look, since she got all embarrassed and laughed and smacked my arm. I swear I didn’t do anything on purpose.

I spent some more time reading and drinking millet beer later. Unfortunately, come evening time, I wasn’t feeling very well. My head hurt and I thought I was going to throw up. I made an attempt at eating a little bit of dinner, but I had no appetite. I didn’t push my luck. 7 o’ clock, my mosquito tent was set up outside and I was in bed.

It wasn’t too hot at all to sleep. I think it’s hotter in Douentza than up on the mountain. I slept peacefully, cooled by a night breeze, until around 3 in the morning when my least favorite dog in the world started up its usual racket. Finally that abided, and I drifted back off to sleep, only to be woken up by puffed up roosters and early sunlight. I dragged my mattress inside and lay down for another hour.

Friday passed slowly. Reading, chatting with Oumar and Bureima, drinking bits of millet beer, etc. In the evening, I discussed my solar panel plans with the school director. He seemed very enthusiastic, saying that the school would never forget my name. We decided it would be best to try to get 2 ceiling fans in each classroom in the new building, then light for the director’s office and one classroom, so people can work at night. Everyone was in agreement that lights wouldn’t do much during the day, and I have to take their word for it. Anyhow, when I go to Sevare, I think this week, I’ll start buying supplies and get as much as I can within my budget.

The problem with village festivities is that they start way too late at night. Their market no one goes to until around sundown. We went with the others, milling around the small market place, Oumar taking pictures with my camera since I would feel awkward about doing it myself. While my head was better, my stomach was upset about something else that day, so I eventually had to dash back to the village and camp out for a while.

The dance itself didn’t start until maybe 10 or 11 at night. By this time, I was exhausted and in no mood for festivities. But Ramata came by and brought Oumar and I over to the dance ground, near the elementary school. My spirits were lifted by the sight of chanting stomping groups of men, some carrying burning poles and millet stalk torches. We watched them dance around for a while, each group from a different village (Kendenno, Entaka, Tongo Tongo), until they joined in a large swirling circle of stomping men surrounding a smaller inner circle of clapping teenage girls. It was very cool to watch at first, and I attempted to get video, even though it was clearly too dark. However, it just went on like that, not changing particularly, though evidently the songs were changing.

The point of Ondom Piri (the festival) is to sing about the wrongs people have done in the last year: lies, cheating, stealing. I guess if you understood the songs, perhaps it would be more interesting, since you’d be getting all of the village gossip from the last year. But I didn’t understand them, and I couldn’t even dance, since it appeared only to be men. Eventually I got tired and went to bed.

Everyone was disappointed, since apparently the good dance, where everyone (probably still men) carries millet torches and dances in a spiral, would be happening on Sunday. However, no one told me this before I got there, and I couldn’t stay. I have Fulbright papers Dave printed for me to mail today, and I was told he’d be leaving Douentza tonight or tomorrow. They said it was okay, that it left something to see next time I come back.

Oumar and I hit the road this morning around 8 and were back in Douentza by 11. It was a hot walk back, but not intolerable. As always, it feels good to be back in Douentza. I had an extremely cold soda and a yogurt. Phil, Dan and I all got back into Douentza around the same time, and Ashlely and Dave were already here, so we’re quite a crew. Apparently a car full of other volunteers I met on St. Patty’s will be passing through on their way back from Timbuktu, so I’ll probably get to say hi to them.

I’m kicking around the idea of going down to Sevare on Tuesday to spend a few days before Steve gets here. I’m hoping my computer battery got there and I’m feeling ready for some more good internet. That way, the following weekend I can go plan on going to Ngouma to see Phil’s village and maybe have a goat roast. Just a little over a month to go in Douentza.

Dead animals (not my own)

I’m coming home next month! Now I can officially say it.

Not much new to report, but I will indeed be off to the village tomorrow. Around Douentza, things are hot and slow-paced, as usual. A couple observations about dead animals: apparently, Dave and Chris came back from Hombori and found a dead cat in their bathroom. Like under the cover, in the bathroom hole. Who knows. And then as I walk to the market everyday, I can watch the progress of this dead chicken slowly turning into a pile of feathers sinking into the mud, as living chicks peck around it. Always a good time.

I’ll be back on Saturday with tales of dancing and millet beer, I’m sure.

Honored guests

Last day of March. Starting tomorrow, I can say, “I’m going home next month.” That will be good. I’m not miserable or anything, but I’ve just had my fill for now. I’m feeling stagnant. I need a change of scenery. But I’ll be off to my village on Thursday, and then back on the weekend, then next week my colleague Steve will be arriving in Mali. I may go to Mopti that weekend or Ngouma, but in any case, I’ll be moving around, doing things.

Yesterday was a good cultural integration day. I worked for a little bit in the morning with Ramata, went to the internet, then ate lunch with Ramata. A couple hours later, Ashley came over, and the three of us (Ramata, Ashley and I) started walking over to my jewelry friend Fatimata’s house. We crossed her en route. She was all dolled up in her finest, a flowing white boubou and big gold jewelry, looking even more beautiful than she usually is. Apparently there had been a wedding.

She walked the rest of the way back with us, instantly greeting Ashley in that warm way only Fatimata knows how to do. And the bits of Fulfulde I had learned were already coming in useful. I could already talk to her more.

When we got to her house, she ushered us into her bedroom, then brought us food on her finest plates and gave us ice water out of little tea cups. We were indeed the guests of honor. The four of us plus her little sister or someone hung out in there for a while, speaking a mix of English, French, and Fulfulde, but generally making ourselves understood. Fatimata is a riot. She just sat around in her bra for most of the time, totally casual. Then at one point, she went over to her little armoire and pulled out a vial of something, and before we knew it, she was sticking her fingers in Ashley’s armpits, rubbing this fragrant paste in there. Then it was my turn. I don’t know if we smelled bad or she just wanted to show us the stuff. In some way or another, she explained that she puts this stuff on everyday, otherwise she doesn’t smell good. It was fairly hilarious, this beautiful Malian woman in her bra sticking her fingers in the armpits of a woman she’d just met. In line with her usual generosity, she gave Ashley a woven pot cover, since Ashley’s Malian last name is Sankare and apparently the Sankares have been making such pot covers for as long as anyone can remember.

After hanging out a while longer, we got up to go home. I’m going to try to start going to her house more often, since she has such good vibes and she forces me to speak Fulfulde.

On our way back home, we took a swing through the market, and I bought some white eyelet lace fabric to make a sundress. Ashley had to go to work, but Ramata and I brought it over to my tailor. Hopefully he’ll understand my drawing, but he’s been pretty good before.

At sundown, I hopped on my moto and went up to the highway to buy some sheep meat. I think I’m pretty anemic here, and I was craving meat. I went to the butcher that Dave knows, who also speaks Tommo-So. We conducted the entire transaction in a combination of Tommo and Fulfulde. (“I don't like fat.” “Okay, do you want bones?” “Yes, some bones are okay.”) I took the little pile of meat, wrapped in brown paper, over to Ashley’s house to share. We ate it all (save for the rogue fat bits), then headed to our favorite restaurant for our obligatory salad and plantains. Finally, we rounded off the meal with a bottle of cold, delicious yogurt. It was one of the more satisfying meals I can remember.

I finished my chef book yesterday and am now reading “Monique and the Mango Rains”, written by an ex- Mali Peace Corps volunteer. It’s a compelling story, well written, and captures the feel of Mali really well. So if any of you wonder what village life is like, it would be a good book to read.

Camels in the desert heat

I spent a rather long time in the market yesterday. A couple hours, at least, which, given the intensity of the surroundings, is quite a while. Ashley came over to my house looking frazzled around 11. It was her first time in Douentza market, and she did it alone to get to my house. Luckily, I had just made some ice water in my new pitcher, so she could cool down. The plan was to go out together and see the animals, as mentioned yesterday.

We left shortly thereafter, and I surprised myself with how well I had gotten to know the Douentza market. “This is the kola nut corner, this is where you can find Fulani wedding blankets, this boutique always has plastic products, even on non-market day,” etc. We went fabric shopping a little bit too. She wanted to get a couple wrap skirts and I’m on the hunt from white eyelet to make a sun dress. The day before, she’d lent me a really good Fulfulde book, which I started pouring through. I felt vindicated, since already, I could carry on small conversations in the market. I’m of the impression that people give you better prices when you speak their language.

I didn’t find quite what I was looking for, but Ashley got a couple of fabrics. As we were leaving a cloth boutique, we ran into Nicolas and his friend David, he apparently had swung by my house to drop off my (Dave’s) tortilla pan. We went the rest of it together.

We stopped at Ashley’s house to eat a little bit before going to the animal market. Then as a treat afterwards, we introduced Nicolas to the Phenomenal Yogurt. He had the initial reaction that most do: wordless bliss. When he finally spoke, he said, “To think of all that time I wasted not drinking this yogurt.” My thoughts exactly.

David split off from the rest of us, since he had something else to do. Nicolas grabbed his moto and went ahead of us with a random little Malian kid towards the animal market. When we got close, I could make out the sandy silhouettes of camels in the distance. I pointed them out to Ashley, but she couldn’t see them yet. Finally, she saw the group of 12 or so camels seated across the sandy field and got positively giddy. And I thought I got happy about camels.

We walked up to them and examined them, looking like permanently smiling furry dinosaurs or a flock of mammalian flamingos when seated. I explained their floppy lips, their squishy feet, and their impressive chest callous that keeps their body off the hot sand when lying down. She wanted to ride one, but didn’t have her camera, so maybe we’ll go back next week. Also notable at the animal market was a bull with the largest horns I had ever seen in my life. Each one had to be between 2 and 3 feet long. Not a bull you want to make mad.

I wanted to find a mortar and pestle in the market, but after scouring the back alleys, calabash row, the bean corner, to no avail, I gave up and went home. I took another bucket bath and lay around in front of the fan making Fulfulde flashcards for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening, I joined Ashley and we went to get salads at our usual restaurant (where they make the Phenomenal Yogurt, the PY, if you will). I got mine with fried plantains and a little bit of beans. Delicious, nutritious, and filling.

Last night, I thought I would try and even out the temperature inside and outside of my room before bed by closing the door and cranking the AC for a while. When it got to feeling like an ice cave, I looked at my new thermometer. 87 degrees. I opened the door to go to the bathroom and I was hit with a hot blast of air, meaning it had to be at least 90 degrees at 11PM at night. In the desert. Which, by further deduction, means it must be 100 plus during the day. Ah yes, I will be glad to go home.