A Few Minor Thoughts

I don't have anything great to write, but I had a few odds and ends to share with you so here goes nothing.

1. I am going to start a “Kilometers I've Biked” tracker on the side of my blog. I think that by the time I go home I will have biked my way back home, so to speak. I will have to put up the official numbers the next time I am in town because I forgot to bring the paper with me. Just giving you a heads up so you can be prepared. You can bike along with me if you'd like.

2. I tried to make a video of my trip to Segou, but the Mac doesn't recognize my videos. I will figure something out so you can follow my travels through long, entertaining videos as opposed to long posts with 100 grammatical errors I am too lazy to fix. Maybe it will be like the biking record where I just keep adding to the video. This means I need to start taking many more videos and pictures than I currently take. Like bullet number one, this will also probably be more exciting for me than for you as well.

3. The Poisonwood Bible. It is written by Barbara Kingsolver. It is about a family that goes to the Congo just as they are gaining their independence from Belgium. It is written from the perspective of the four daughters and wife of a Baptist minister. The details are great if you want to get a better understanding of the intricate details that are very similar to my own life here. There are parts that aren't explained well enough for someone who has not visited this neck of the woods to totally understand. Facts I wouldn't understand if I were not here, such as the mentioning of people putting their left arm to their right elbow when they shake hands with someone. It is a sign of respect, something that is not explained in the book. Additionally, in Mali anyways, touching your right hand to your heart after shaking a person's hand is a greater sign of respect for that person. The mayor does this when he shakes my hand, and I do the elbow thing because the heart thing is more awkward for me than the elbow thing. The book also does a great job of describing how the girls come to have a better understanding of the Congolese mindset as they spend more time in the country, an experience I am slowly beginning to have about my neighbors in village, perhaps at the same pace as the girls in the book. They slowly pick up on bits and pieces, and I think it the author is able to look into the Congo through the eyes of American teenage girls in the 1960s. Sometimes I think the girls “say” things many people would think when visiting foreign countries but would never say, which is important because it makes it seem all the more real. Sometimes you just can't help but think that people who do things in a way differently than you do are very strange and so you think strange things about them. It would be stupid to pretend we don't experience culture shock and I'm glad the author embraces that. I guess the Malians show their shock of me through their actions (laughing, staring, and pointing), opposed to me thinking the thoughts to myself, which is a good defense mechanism because, obviously, I am highly outnumbered here. I think the book is also important because it shows the mindset of the minister in thinking he can come into a country without trying to learn about the people and the many bits and pieces of their culture while trying to have a huge impact, such as getting a village to convert to Christianity. Here is a give away. It doesn't work. Peace Corps takes a long time, but it has a more meaningful impact on all parties involved because we learn the language and culture. Perhaps most importantly, we get to know the people and get their opinion on what their village needs. They obviously have the best ideas because it is their village. By getting to know them, we can help them to meet their developmental goals by serving as a facilitator to help them organize the skills they already possess (along with money once in a while) to make these changes. I could continue this thought but it would go on so many more tangents and this is already a very long bullet point.

4. Finally, I was distracted in writing this post when I discovered that my bike tire was completely flat and had to fix a hole in it. First time ever doing that. After though, I realized I didn't have a pump and had to borrow one from a volunteer living in Sikasso. Borrowing another volunteer's bike to go to the house with the pump, I saw-prepare yourself- a cow, living and well, although a bit uncomfortable looking, lying in the trunk of a taxi. I would say that site alone was worth the two hours spent fixing the tire.

5. Ok, ok, ok, ok. One more thing. The rat is dead! I came home from IST in December, opened my door, and bam, dead rap trapped in the mouse trap sent by my mom. My homologue got rid of it for me and reset the trap. Twenty minutes later some animal had come to pick up the rat. (That or it came back from the dead. At any rate, it hasn't come back to my house.) It was great. However, the next day, a swarm of bees (around 500 give or take) came to visit my yard and stayed all day long. My host mom told me they "wouldn't do anything if I stayed inside with the door shut." (She also told me, "A little dirt won't hurt" as a baby ate dirt where cows had just walked by and poop was lying nearby.) They left at night fall and the next night I was woken up by the sounds of something scurrying in my house. I discovered that two lizards have discovered how to enter my house from a small gap between the metal roof and concrete side of my wall.