I have to say my thoughts would seem much more organized if I would take the time to think about my blog posts before typing them up and if the power stayed on long enough to finish a blog post. That being said, I know this doesn't always make sense, but just try and make sense of it all.
Adventures with Madu and Midu
Technically their names are Amadu and Amidu, but their family has shortened the names slightly. Midu is three and Madu is two. Midu is Madu's uncle. Midu's dad is Madu's older brother by about 23 years. Madu's dad is my host dad, the mayor, meaning my host dad is Midu's grandpa. I'll try and make it more confusing as we go.
Lately the boys have begun spending more time at my house. The kids here have no toys to play with, with the exception of plastic used soft drink bottles, bike tires they roll around with sticks, and the rocks they find on the ground so I can understand why I might appear to be some sort of entertainment (Side note: this is not me asking you to send toys for the kids, just a note to readers). Most people enjoy staring at me, for minutes on end, even if I look them directly in the eye for a solid minute as if to say, excuse me, you are bothering me a lot so please stop staring. Usually the only way to get them to stop staring is to ask them why they are staring, and even then they don't always take the hint.
One morning we spent a lot of time together. Madu's mom, my host mom, and Midu's grandma always brings me breakfast in the morning. On that particular day, Madu hung around with me, sitting in one of my chairs under my gwa, patiently waiting for me to finish so he could eat the leftovers, as he does each morning. That morning he ran and grabbed Midu. This was shocking because Madu hates sharing, in part because Momi, Madu's half brother (Momi's mom is my host dad's second wife), always steals the bowl from Madu. They polished off my bowl and ran home with it.
They returned shortly later, just as I had finished making myself a cup of tea. Again, they waited patiently, occasionally eying me. Fortunately I had made far too much tea so I let them finish it off. I could not believe how they took turns taking sips and passing it back and forth.
Then they just awkwardly sat there. I tried doing my sudoku, intently listening to the radio, but then the radio died and I grew annoyed with counting from 1 to 9 over and over and I could feel their little eyes on me. I took my things back inside and tried to figure something out to do with them. Suddenly I spotted the fallen leaves from my mango tree. I had just returned to site from Sikasso and hadn't had a chance to sweep my yard (they are very particular with the design they make in their yard while sweeping the dirt). I casually began sweeping up the leaves and putting them in the pile. When I grabbed some trash and started the trash and leaves on fire, they came running towards me. Lots of giggling and jumping up and down ensued. I motioned for them to get more leaves because they speak Samogho and I speak Bambara. They ran everywhere and before I knew it my yard was leaf free. They eventually ran outside of my concession to search for more leaves and handed them over the wall to me to throw into the fire.
This still wasn't enough for them. Right now I have figured out that when all else fails with getting rid of kids who wander into my yard (probably 30 a day), the best thing to do is to pick mangoes off of the trees around my house. So Madu, Midu, and I went on a search for the best mangoes around. I cut the skin off of them (typically kids bite into the mango and spit the skins out all over my yard later) and they ran around eating them, dropping them on the ground, asking me to clean them again, etc.
Two hours later, my host mom was walking around and chanced upon the boys. In general, people don't worry about the kids much because the villages are very safe. The only time they worry is at night when it is dark and it is bath time. She was able to distract them and they ran off with her for the rest of the morning. I didn't see them again until that night. Madu and I made tea together... fake tea that is, but tea all the same.
Eating in Mali
I know I have talked about how much I enjoy eating food on special occasions, but I'm not sure I have talked about the foods I eat in Mali.
To (sounds just like toe in English)
To is by far the most commonly eaten food. In my village, people eat to for every meal and snacks. It is made out of corn. First, you shuck the corn, peel the corn off of the cob, and pound it into a fine dust. All day long throughout the village you can hear the women pounding corn, millet, and more. Sometimes two women will work together. To keep rhythm they will pound the corn throw their stick in the air, clap their hands together, catch the stick, and hit the corn again. While she is hitting the corn, the second woman is throwing the stick and clapping her hands. It sounds confusing and strange but it helps them to pound and not have to work alone.
Once the corn has been crushed and sifted for any dirt it is cooked with water. As it is boiling, you use a huge spatula to continually stir the combination. It slowly begins to take form so you throw it in a huge bowl and let it set for a while. Eventually it forms something with the consistency between that of pudding and play-doh. Usually it forms a skin on the top you have to peel off before you eat.
When it is time to eat someone tells me na shi no (come eat in Samogho) or na dumunike (come eat in Bambara). Each person takes their turn washing their hands. My family didn't wash their hands with soap before I came, but now we all take turns using the soap. Each woman washes her hands from the same bowl though, which means you're basically just swapping dirt. Fortunately I get to wash my hands first so avoid this problem. We- all of the women- eat out of the same huge bowl. The idea is for each person to respect their area of the bowl to take food from, but that doesn't always work and I awkwardly grab food that nobody else has yet touched. You grab a small hand full of to, dip it in a sauce made of a combination of vegetables, water, salt, etc. and then throw it in your mouth. Next, you lick your fingers free of to and then repeat It is a strange consistency but it doesn't taste too bad. At the end of the meal, whenever you are full, you say, N faara, which means, I am full. The women pass me the water bowl and I wash my hands. After washing, I say, A barika, which means thank you for this food. Typically this is followed by the blessing, Allah ka sumaya kono, meaning, may it cool in your stomach, i.e. we hope you do not get sick from the food.
Rice
Rice is considered rich people food. As a result, my family only eats rice during big fetes (parties), such as Seliba (wrote about this in the holiday blog), the end of Ramadan, the Malian anniversary of independence, or weddings. Instead of dipping the rice in the sauce, you pour the sauce directly over the rice. There are three ways of eating rice. The first is the way I eat my rice every night. My host mom cooks it for me, and I eat it with a spoon. The second way is the way Malians eat rice. They grab a huge handful of rice, scraping it on the side of the bowl as they pick it up. Then they make a fist to squish the rice into a nice mound. Next, they put their tongue at the base of their wrist and lick their hand from wrist to fingertips, grabbing the huge ball of rice and any other pieces that got away when squishing it into a ball. Repeat. The third way is the way I eat rice with my hands. I take smaller amounts of rice, and allow it to rest on my fingertips instead of squishing it into a ball in the palm of the hand. Then I use my thumb to push the rice off of the rest of my fingers into my mouth. Then lick my fingers clean and grab a new handful. A great deal of saliva is swapped in the process of eating rice and to if you haven't figured that out on your own.
Meat/ Fish
Once every week or two, my family is able to afford to eat meat. Each person gets a very small piece of meat, enough to eat in two or three bites. Usually it is ba sogo (sheep meat), but occasionally it is misi sogo (cow meat) or she sogo (chicken meat). My family doesn't seem to ever eat fish, but you can find plenty of fish at the market. When I visit literacy center classes, they will invite me to lunch once in a while and they will give me fish as a treat. During teacher training I insisted that the women wash their hands with soap before eating together so whenever I eat after literacy classes the teachers are sure remember to bring some soap with them so we can wash before eating. They do this out of respect for me and don't use the soap at home, but dooni dooni (slowly slowly) change will occur.
Ivory Coast/ Libya
I think that it is really easy to hear about things going on throughout the world and think how such and such has nothing to do with you and has no impact on you. I would imagine many Americans would only complain about the situation in North Africa if it referred to the drastic increase in oil prices. I am guilty of this too, but lately is has begun hitting home. Problems in the Ivory Coast have made costs increase in Mali. I know of two projects on my road alone (National Road 7 is my road that leads to the Ivory Coast) that have been impacted as a result of increased prices. The size of a gwa (hanger used to weigh babies at the health center) had to be made smaller because of the price of cement, and it affected another project making latrines as well. Additionally, problems in the Ivory Coast has caused drastic power outages throughout the country. Bamako, the capital and largest city in Mali has power outages all of the time. In Sikasso, the second largest city in Mali, the power is out for probably 16 hours a day, at least. I live without electricity at least 25 days a month so you can understand how disappointing it is to spend three hours traveling to Sikasso in 100+ degree weather to do work, charge my iPod, use the computer, sleep under A/C and a fan and then find out the power went out ten minutes before I arrived and then doesn't return until after I have gone to bed or gone back to site. Obviously this also hinders all types of work that depend on computers, electricity etc. especially if the organization cannot afford a generator. Lately it has been very difficult to catch a bus on my road because there are so many refugees returning from the Ivory Coast. The buses enter the country completely full and some Ivory Coast vehicles have been allowed to bring refugees over.
I don't have as much to say about the situation in Libya and it's immediate effect here in Mali, but I will say that the president of Libya has given Mali a lot of money for development projects. Recently they funded a project to build a fantastic building in Bamako that will soon house all of the ministries of the country. There are strong ties between the president from what I can understand so there may be more to the story with time.
My point though, is that the things going on in a country may not immediately affect us, and we have a tendency to ignore situations or care less about them until they have an effect on us (sorry for completely butchering the use of affect and effect in this point), and even then we only care about the impact on us, not the impact on those in the country, and that impact is obviously greater, especially if it means leaving the country. Many Malians live in the Ivory Coast because there are more jobs to be found there. Right now, there are Ivoirians going into neighborhoods dominated by the Bambara ethnic group (an ethnic group from Mali) and slitting the throats of the residents. One volunteer's work partner is on the phone all of the time, can't eat, can't sleep because her family lives in one of these neighborhoods and has no means or money to return to Mali. I would challenge you to consider the impact that international events have on the residents of the country itself instead of just waiting to see how it impacts you.
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