update

I’m pretty sure only Seinfeld could properly capture the comedy in my life. So my last bit of money was stolen, which left me with not even a a ‘tanna’ to my name (10 cents). As I’ve pointed out, food, housing, all that isn’t a problem. My only real need to maintain my sanity is phone credit. Kelly, my Peace Corps friend who lives 800k away, has been my lifeline this past year and a half. We were sent to Madagascar together with high hopes and overwhelmingly good intentions. The military coup saw us evacuated together in dismay with lingering, unfulfilled aspirations. We spent two weeks in South Africa mentally preparing for Peace Corps round two. Then, we were transferred to Mali together excited and full of nerves, wondering if we could do it all again. Well, at least we had each other for potential pity parties. So when I was out of money, I wasn’t surprised when she sent me $6 worth of credit via the phone. Of course, she’s struggling herself. So when she ran out of credit the following day, I simply sent her back a bit of the credit she’d sent me. Spending the little money we have in slightly superfluous ways, but then helping each other out even when we're both broke- its so wonderfully characteristically Malian of us.

Fantaya be

So I’m broke. I think I had more money when I was 7 years old; my piggy bank filled with the money I made off recycling my neighbor’s bottles and cans. Plus I had a little enterprise with my brother. We’d find golf balls that had gone astray into the Santa Monica Mountains surrounding our Tarzana home. We’d wash them clean and resell them on the side of the road leading to the golf club. I understand now that my brother was the brains behind my small fortune at a young age. I’m on my own now, I’m 24 years old, and I have $3 to my name ($1 of which I just spent on this internet session – clearly, I know how to manage my money).

Lettuce is in season, and I absolutely love to stroll the streets at night, finding a woman selling food, and having a big bowl of salad prepared. The vendor has probably washed the leaves well (with chlorine), but unfortunately she uses the same hands to toss the salad that she does to take dirty coins in payment. I’m well aware of all this as a health volunteer, but I’ve convinced myself that the vitamins I’m getting from the leafy greens outweigh the costs of sticking to a purely carbohydrate based diet. My closest friend Awaha and I have being doing this like ritual for the past two months. We tear pieces off a long loaf of locally baked French bread to scoop up mouthfuls of lettuce covered in oil, vinegar, and Maggi (msg-filled boullion). Maggi is ubiquitous, used in every sauce, every meal, every time. The commercials are endless and feature a typically dressed Malian woman cooking in a modern Western style kitchen. It closes with the motto, « Avec Maggi, chaque femme est une etoile » (With Maggi, every woman is a star). I'll skip the feminist comment and just say Maggi targets their audience well.

Now, my current state of means is curbing my appetite. It is absolutely impossible to starve anywhere in Mali that I’ve been. Every single person invites you to share their meal. There’s nothing Malians love telling foreigners more than 'an fe' or 'chez nous' - 'every morsel of food is everyone’s food.’ But, my body is craving veggies! Luckily, as people can buy almost anything on credit, so can I (they simply promise to pay the amount a week or more later). So my salad lady is keeping track of what I owe her. You know, every white person here is looked at as a walking wallet. Seeing me buy lettuce on credit is a very confusing picture. Only my friend Awaha actually believes I’m broke. Of course, the girl has less than me. And yesterday, I borrowed her cutest ‘going out’ shirt and she told me at the end of the night that if I tried giving it back to her, she would pick a fight. I kept the shirt, but I felt a pang of guilt…the pang of recognition of my selfishness. Months back, she’d done my laundry for me and borrowed a shirt of mine. A friend hinted that she liked the shirt a lot, which angered me, and I immediately asked for it back. From my point of view, it was sneaky…offer to do my laundry as a friend because she could a better job than me, and then indirectly ask for a shirt of mine in return. But, now I’ve begun to see their point of view. I know she gave me her favorite shirt the other day and I know I never would have done the same.

I knew I’d learn a lot from Africa. I knew Africa (and Peace Corps) would make me self-reflect to uncomfortable lengths. I've provided a small, silly example, but in much larger ways, I’ve become acutely aware of my selfishness in the past year. But, becoming self-aware is one thing. Changing is another thing altogether. Well, at the very least, when I get home, I’ll be better at sharing my food.

(I'd like to stress that Peace Corps is not starving me. They keep us frugal certainly by American standards - and we are volunteers after all- but I earn more than the average Malian teacher. I’ve just been a little to liberal with my money the past couple months.)

Visit to the Marabout

I joked around in my last post about petty fights and the rumor mill that is my town of Koulikoro. But, there are more serious disputes/problems and I say this in reference to gender relations. I’m not going to hide the fact that gender roles are deeply entrenched here and men hold the power unquestionably. I'm sure it's the first thing that makes an impression on every liberal Western visitor. Men often have multiple wives. This usually causes the first shock (after seeing people eat with their hands). Certainly, this kind of societal organization must have had its advantages and maybe still does in the bush. But, in the cities, it’s hard for me to see that a practical reasoning still exists behind polygamy. People will say that the wives of one husband get along wonderfully as well as their children. But, from my experience jealousies abound in all directions.

The male domination is not just confined to the marital realm. The same friend I’ve discussed before (the one who threw the punch) I'll call 'Awaha.' Awaha had been staying at my house since the day she called me at 5 in the morning, crying, asking me to come outside my concession. She was there covered in dirt and belt lashes. Her ex-boyfriend had beaten her up and when he’d dropped her off at her home, her mother had kicked her out of the house for turning up in the early morning hours. Violence against women is a reality here as it is everywhere. I just don’t think I’ve ever come across it so openly and publicly before. I’ve been chatting with a friend on more than one occasion during the day while listening to a man beat his wife for all to hear. Just the other evening, I heard a whiplash break the silence of the night and turned to see a girl sprinting towards me. She practically knocked me over in order to hide behind my friend and I, as a shirtless man pursued with a belt raised over his head. There's not much gray area to this issue: men are allowed to hit women, but a woman should never lay a hand on a man. I can say the majority of people I’ve encountered, male and female, agree with this concept fundamentally. Perhaps, someone will say in a particular incident a beating was unjustified. But, he always retains the right.

So, back to my friend who turned up on my doorstep at 5 in the morning shaking, not knowing what to do with her arms...hold them together against the slight chill of the fading night or continue pointing out to me her various wounds. Like anyone would have done, I tried to be a good friend. She stayed with me for a few days. I listened, I made her feel at home, I kept her company. When this situation had occurred in the past, I tried to get her to talk to someone, a counselor of sorts, but to no avail. I thus resigned myself to play the simple role I was playing now.

There were other things I did to help, one of those ‘only in Mali’ ways of helping. Malians always use a third person intermediary for most disputes. Therefore, I was to go with another friend to talk with her mother and plead on her behalf to allow her to come home. But, even before that, there was a step to take to increase the probability her mother would concede; that was to go consult a marabou, Muslim holy man. One dusk, Awaha and I walked towards the outlying hills and found the Marabou she trusted. The Marabou sat across from us on a mat, surrounded by prayer beads, Quranic pages, fetishes, and traditional medicine (leaves and little soda bottles filled with anonymous concoctions). He was very serious and silent as he unfolded a binder filled with columns and columns of hash marks. He asked us to breath and whisper onto his pen, then asked our names and wrote them in Arabic. Beneath our names, he started to drawing columns of hash marks that flowed into more branching columns of hash marks. It reminded me of drawing evolutionary diagrams in life science. Then, he started telling us things concerning our finances and love lives and it started to remind me more of MASH (not the tv series, but the game we girls used to play mostly to predict who we would marry).

In order to realize a wish of mine, I was told to buy candies and peanuts for children and chew on one white kola nut. I helped my friend follow the instructions she was given to drive away her woes. The following evening, I built a fire so she could burn 6 red kola nuts and an old pair of shoes. All the items had been inscribed with lines from the Quran by the Marabou himself. When her mother conceded a couple days later, you know what she credited for hastening her return home. Her ex has also become less of a stalker and much friendlier in meeting. I’ve politely cautioned my friend that this probably isn’t a change for the long-term.

Fists flying

My community here is very dramatic and all too gossipy. Everyone is concerned with everybody else’s affairs because that’s what there is to entertain in a limited (small) society where jobs are lacking. The other day my girl friend ended up in a fight with another girl because she’d heard from her friend’s friend that the girl had talked about her behind her back. Whether or not the girl was guilty of the offense, the subject she was supposedly blathering about was not particularly wounding. She confronted the girl and, after a very brief, what I can barely call a ‘discussion’ between the two, the whole neighborhood had arrived to catch the insults and fists flying in both directions. It started with my friend leaning across an elder (who had been acting as the intermediary) and throwing a punch to the jaw. Maybe one could draw a parallel to a similar experience witnessed in middle school, but these girls are in their mid-twenties fighting over hearsay.

I admit fully to speaking in generalities, but I find Malians to be easily incensed, a bit hot blooded. But, what I love is that they mellow out as quickly as they are roused. A simple ‘sabali sa’ or ‘cool it’ works with amazing efficacy. Example: I was in Bamako about to take a cab. I noticed two other tubabs (foreigners) and assumed they were headed to the same neighborhood. I asked them to share a cab with me. They said sure, they had one ready at 2,500cfa…was that a good price? I said, listen, I got this cab guy going for 1,500cfa. So they quickly hopped in my taxi. At this point, their original cab driver ran over yelling in my face and was up in arms with our driver as well. It was a heated argument that certainly didn’t look like it was going to end soon. I raised a hand and said, ‘sabali sa.’ He looked at me, his shoulders dropped, and he listened attentively as I apologized that he had lost some business, but that we were obligated by reason to take the better fare. He smiled in understanding, blessed me, and walked away.

The story of my friend also fits this idea. It soon became clear that the story had been altogether fabricated – the girl was completely innocent of talking behind her back. My friend regretted her actions (which had included throwing the initial punch, later smearing the name of the girl’s family, and threatening by text message both the girl’s sister and cousin). She apologized to the girl and they were back on good terms all within 24 hours of the blow to the jaw.

needle in a haystack

This isn't a particularly interesting story, but for some reason I feel like sharing it. I had my flashdrive with me at the Peace Corps office in Bamako working on getting some funding for a project. I'd finished my work, slipped the device in my bag, and took a 10 minute walk to a restaurant. On arrival, I discovered I'd lost my thumb drive... the pocket of my Malian sewn purse had a hole in it. The loss of the bit of work I had on it didn’t cause me too much distress. There were a few reflections on my experience in Madagascar (where I only had access to a computer every month or so). The bulk of the material was just a window for venting during my ‘deaf mute’ months in Mali (where I’ve had much more access to computers). Nonetheless, the loss of 50 pages or more of personal journaling from this whole Peace Corps experience was devastating.

I retraced my steps, covering the 1km dirt and paved road route with no result. In shock, I sat down and I explained my situation to a guy selling phone chargers. He immediately grabbed his ‘moto’ (scooter) and started searching for it. Meanwhile, a taxi driver walked the route with me again. The guy with the moto stopped at every group of people along the way asking if they had seen it. I even enlisted a group of garibou (Muslim beggar chlidren) to look for it, promising a monetary award. They usually belong to a madrasa, but spend most of the day going around reciting or singing Koranic verses and accepting change dropped into an old tomato paste can strung around their arms.

After another hour, I resigned myself officially of the fruitless search. I had really given up the moment I’d discovered it lost…thinking ‘needle in a haystack.’ But, I thought I should at least put an honest effort towards a search because of what the contents meant to me. I gave my number to the guy with the moto and left to mope in privacy.

The following day, less than 24 hours later, I receive a phone call from the guy telling me he knows somebody that found something, and it might be my thumbdrive. I met him an hour later, he called the guy, who turns up on moto with the so-desired item. I was ecstatic and slipped the guy some money as a thank you. He looked at me blankly and then asked for my number. But, the original phone charger guy who really did the leg work would not accept anything from me. He simply said to me, ‘no, no, no, you see…you greet and chat with the people and they will help you with anything.’ And this is why I love Mali. Because absolute strangers will go to great lengths to help you out for nothing in return, and they’ll have the patience for you, they’ll give you the time of day, even when you’re stumbling along in a nearly incomprehensible jumble of French and Bambara.

Birthday

I turned 24. Hosted a nice dinner with my closest girlfriends. Not so unlike my old life...

aside from eating with our hands from a bucket.

Christmas in Mali

There are a few Christians around in this Muslim country. My close old lady friend is one of them, though in practice she mixes Islam, Christianity, and traditional beliefs. And that’s not shocking when everyone else holds traditional beliefs alongside those in the Quran. So I celebrated Christmas with ‘Ami’ and her family. I politely refused to go to church with her because I was still scarred from last Christmas’ full day in prayer in Madagascar. I was very willing to partake in the food component. We celebrated on Christmas Eve, and made French fries and French ‘Surprises’ (hard-boiled eggs covered in ground meat, held together with string which is removed after frying). I had to depart briefly to do a radio transmission on HIV/AIDS, and in order to publicize a campaign I’d helped organize for the following day (more on that later). But, I returned in the evening to enjoy the food we’d prepared. My Rasta friend, Ami’s son, also joined and brought fried pig skin. By coincidence, this is how I normally celebrate at home - on the eve (24th) according to my mother's Danish tradition, and always with pork rinds. In this case, it might have been a bit of an affront to the non-pork eating Muslim guests present, but, then again, they had joined in on a celebration of the birth of Jesus, a tad sacriligeous even if he is one of their prophets. I'm not judging...how can one complain these days about a place where the two religions meet in such a way. It was a nice evening, followed by an even more memorable Christmas Day.

December is the month designated worldwide for the fight against HIV/AIDS. A few weeks prior, a Togolese friend had approached me about a potential HIV/AIDS campaign – a discussion on the subject, followed by a dance interspersed with HIV/AIDS related games and prizes with the goal of increasing awareness and promoting safe sex practices. Over the preceding weeks, we went around to all the health NGO’s in the community to ask for assistance. I was able to get a bit of funding from Peace Corps as well (technically USAID money requiring a 1/3 community contribution of the total budget).

The NGO leader who ran most of the show (led the discussions and decided the deserving recipients of the prizes – shirts, hats, condoms) was already an acquaintance. I knew a popular DJ in town to do the sound (handsome and charming, and in line to become village chief). My Togolese friend and I invited the appropriate community leaders (I had to open the campaign with a slow dance with the mayor). A photographer friend of mine was asked to document the dance (which unfortunately turned me into a bit of a prop…everyone wanted a photo with the 'tubab'). The publicity included the radio broadcast and word of mouth, really the most effective communication tool. My close friends spread the word that “Aminata was having a dance” and within 24 hours I think every youth in town knew about it. What made me feel so good was that all my effort that had gone into integrating into my community the last 8 months, made this little task incredibly easy. I had already established relationships with most everyone involved.

Lastly, I often hang out with a group of friends that act as community peer educators. This means they’ve attended a conference on HIV/AIDS or family planning, for example, and then are encouraged to instigate discussions amongst groups of friends, perhaps 10 times a month, on the subject. This might be a little hard to imagine without a conception of Malian social life. As I’ve mentioned before, Malians are always taking tea together. In city life, everyone is part of a ‘gren’ or social group/clique. This is usual a group of people they have grown up with and they share tea with everyday. The idea is that one can share and have very open discussions with their ‘grens.’ It’s not appropriate to frequent other grens often; better to remain faithful to the original. Every gren even has a name (Mal vie ‘The Bad Life’, Brooklyn City, etc). People can be identified by naming their gren (eg. 'you know Mohamed?' 'Which Mohamed?' 'Mohamed Coulibaly' 'Which Mohamed Coulibaly?' '...of Mal vie.' 'Oh, yeah').

So, here in Mali, many NGO’s often form community peer educators and train them to target 'grens' to spread their messages amongst the youth. Again, since there are no jobs and people generally just chat over tea all day, this is a seemingly effective technique. I used to wonder what motivates a peer educator to do his or her job. Sometimes there are some very minor monetary rewards. More likely, one hopes their bit of volunteer work will help them land an NGO job down the road. But, I honestly believe, and of course this is completely my own speculation, that a large motive is simply to have a sense of purpose. For me, people are not just floundering to make ends meet, they are floundering for a 'raison d'être.' I can see the pride people have in saying they are a peer educator and have been trained in this and that. My main issue I can raise with this grassroots technique to behavior change is that it neglects females. NGO’s are well rehearsed in gender issues relative to development. They’ll make sure to have an equal amount of trained female peer educators. But, grens are almost always all male. Women just don’t seem to form social groups and take tea together to the same extent men do (probably because they are occupied with the foyer/household).

A bit of a digression there...so...the one particular 'gren' I spend many afternoons with happens to be peer educators in family planning and HIV/AIDS so they were more than happy to come present their NGO and do a little sketch at the campaign I helped organize. It was a small project, just a one-day event. I believe 300 people or so turned up. A fellow Peace Corps friend was there and wowed the crowd with her fluency in Bambara. I think the messages in relation to HIV/AIDS translated effectively and in an entertaining way. How couldn’t a white girl walking around with a silver platter of condoms not bring a laugh? The only problem I face now is everyone asking me for condoms! I’ve even had some uppity, imploring high school boys coming by my house close to midnight. By the way, in my town I know people can afford them..a packet of four condoms costs less than twenty cents. And even the students who really have no money still manage to find some change for cigarettes on a daily basis, so they can do the same with condoms, if they fully understand the responsibility they have.

French fries and French 'surprises'