Done!

I made it back.

The trip from Dakar to DC took about 24 hours, so I am beat, but happy to be back in the States.

For the most part, the flights were fine. The only annoyance was the final flight from JFK to DCA. Our flight got delayed because of a storm system over DC, so we had to sit in the plane for about an hour and a half. By the time we left, I counted 25 planes sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off. Ridiculous.

I am back though...

Quick Note:

I think I am pretty much done entering all my journal information onto this blog... the only entries left are the days of travel from Mali-Senegal-France-New York-DC.

I also have posted my photo albums (to the right) and I have put some photos into the blog enteries now that I have reliable internet.

Enjoy,
TW

Diakite

I got down to Bamako and headed back to Eric Anderson's apartment... he was kind enough to let me stay there versus getting a hotel room for 40 bucks a night.

Today, I went out on a search for Saleem Diakite, international man of mystery and creator of the San Hot Pocket.

He left San when a friend of his told him they could work together down in Bamako and made gobs of money. Unfortunately, when Diakite got down here, his friend refused to give him any of the earnings. He ended up finding a new job working at the Avis rent-a-car center cleaning cars when they come back from rentals. It is not good work, but it pays the bills for the moment.

It was good to see Diakite, but you could tell he wasn't psyched to be cleaning cars. I'm hoping he gets back on his feet making those hot pockets.

This is quite possibly the coolest photo I have ever taken. The coolness does NOT come from my camera ability but from this guy.

San Redux

After Yangasso, I headed back up to San. I had purposely left some of my stuff in the San Stage house and I wanted to buy a few things at the market.

Coulibaly was working again at the stage house and I snapped a couple shots of his mohawk. It's been growing out a little bit so it isn't in full effect, but it is still rock and roll all the way.


There were a couple volunteers still at the stage house. It was a good time, we went through old photographs left behind by Peace Corps Volunteers from my time and they all looked on as I explained who they were and where they lived. As a volunteer, you have such access to the culture and the community in Mali, but Peace Corps has almost no institutional memory, so any chance volunteers have to connect with the history or Peace Corps, they jump. I remember having that same feeling. It was always so weird to find out about the history of Peace Corps before I arrived. It was like finding a treasure map after you've been searching for burried treasure for the last year and a half.

I spent the afternoon walking around San and buying plastic cups and a hat. I think it was an excellent use of my time.
TW

Roosters

So very tired. Around 4:30am, the rooster Vieux gave me started cock-a-doodle-doing just about every five minutes. I'm pretty sure no one in the concession got any sleep. The rooster decided the best place to stand was right next to me, too.

Everything works out in Mali though... In the mid-morning, the rooster started fighting with the other rooster the Coulibaly's have so we decided to cook him up and eat him for lunch. HA!

Lunch was great.

After we ate, I lapsed into my coma-like state underneath the gwa and lost all track of the world. I didn't realize this as it was happening, but it started to get more hot and humid than normal... which would explain why I litterally could not stay conscious... anyway, that is a great sign for rain, and around 3:30pm a full on monsoon came through and soaked the earth for a good hour and a half. It was a great feeling to have the heat broken and it was great for Yangasso. This does not ensure a good rainy season, but it is a great sign.

During the storm, Awa and her kids hung out in the their house and I took photos of everyone. It was a great hour and a half. Aloo, the second youngest, put on a show for us. Everyone had smiles on their faces and laughs came easily. It was a great way to end my stay in Yangasso.

In the afternoon, I got my stuff together and headed down to the center of Yangasso to try and find transport out of Yangasso.

Leaving this time was much easier. I had wondered whether it would be as hard as the last time... getting left handed shakes and people not looking at me... but it was a very different experience. People were all happy to have seen me and wished me a safe journey home.

Everyone in Yangasso greets you all in the United States.

I headed up to San on a transport coming from the Dugoulo (sp?) market. The transport was slow but I didn't mind too much. I spent the ride thinking about my time in Peace Corps and this visit. There are so many memories to sort through and to make sense of. I was in such a different place when I was leaving Mali in 2005. I was sorting through all that I did and what I would have changed.

Hint of rain

In the midle of the night there was a little bit of rain and a lot of wind. The Bocadari and Awa were happy it was there, but we all had to get up and bring things inside and change where we were sleeping.

I was sleeping outside so I had to move inside. I think in an attempt to be nice they put me in the storage shed so I would have my own space. I had my own spot, but I ended up sharing the spot with all the mice who live around their house. In a half-sleep state, I turned my headlight in the direction of some noise (which was right above my head and outside my mosquito net) and found about 5 or 6 mice huddled up trying to get away from the storm. What surprised me the most was that I went directly back to sleep. For some reason it really didn't bother me that much.

I woke up a bit early, and headed over to Madu Konate's house. Yesterday he said he was heading out to the Bani River Dam, which was just being built as I was leaving in 2005. It was a Malian-Chinese joint project that installed two roads and the dam itself. Madu never really explained why he was going but he said it would be fine for me to come along. I hopped on the back of his moto and we began the journey.

It turned out to be 40km away which is pretty long in the sun on the back of a moto. We did make one stop at the house of a friend of Madu's. I figured out Madu was interested in going to the river to buy fish from the Bozos (ethnic group who live along the rivers and fish). His friend had told him he could buy fish for 400 CFA per kilo at the river versus 600 CFA in Yangasso. We had to stop at his friend's house to find the name of the people we would buy from.

While we were there his friend figured out I was American and immediately asked if I could take his picture. Why my nationality prompted him to ask for a photograph escapes me, but hey... So we walked through the town to this guy's horse and I took a photo of him, some of his kids and his horse. We then walked back and got on the moto to leave. Right as we fired up the moto and started to leave he called us back and came running after us with a small box and handed me his business card... This guy lives probably 35km from the main road of Yangasso which is already Nowheresville for Mali, but this guy still had a business card. **When I get back to the US, I will post that photo**

The river dam was pretty cool. Over half of the river is an earthen jetti. The second half has a bridge with an overflow dam that funnels the water quickly into some structure. What happens to the water is still unclear. Some people in Yangasso told me it is transported about 70km away to be used on the cornfields up there and some other people said it is just used on the millet fields in the commune of Yangasso. I definitely saw a sign saying it was used for corn fields, but all the fields in the Yangasso area are millet. I can't imagine how hard it would be to transfer all that water 70km away... I should try and figure out what exactly happens to the water.

When I got back, I was dog-tired and a little bit sunburned. I spent the afternoon using Bocadari's slingshot to knock over a can near the Coulibaly concession. Ba Djenne and Aloo helped me by collecting rocks for me. I love Malian kids... they had just as much fun collecting rocks as I did knocking the can over.

In the late afternoon, I went over to Vieux Traore's house, who was one of the people I worked with while I was living in Yangasso. Turns out, the fencing project we worked on has not really developed at all since I left. World Vision came in right after I had left and built a large scale community garden with a solar pump and water basins. Ugh. All the material the tree association and I purchased have been sitting in Vieux's back yard collecting dust.
Apparently, a few factors have changed the situation since I left...

1. During the drought, sales of trees has dropped
2. The association is worried people will steal the metal fence once it is installed
3. The World Vision garden has given some members of the association a cheaper alternative to creating an association run tree nursery.

I certainly understand the drought altering the market for trees, which is already a difficult market in rural areas. While the trees sold by the association are reltively cheap and are usually 1 to 2 years old (which is the hardest years for growing trees), people will still try and grow trees from seed or try and find saplings in the woods, even if they are bound to die. As well, the World Vision garden is great for the community and it definitely trumps the work I did. I was working with a small association who had limited resources... World Vision has tons of cash and can spend it on whatever pleases them.

What seems nuts to me is the idea that someone would steal all their fencing if they put it in place. There is metal fencing everywhere in the Yangasso and I have never heard of crooks coming in the night and making off with large amounts of chain-link fencing. I think the greater shame is the association didn't think about the possibility earlier. If they had been worried about a criminal coming and stealing their fence, we could have included cement in the project and got funding for it. As it stands now, I can't go back to Peace Corps and try and finish up my project.

It is frustrating, but not insurmountable. With mobile service now in Yangasso, it means I can keep in touch with Vieux and the association pretty easily and we might be able to make some progress.

I let them know they could sell the fencing and use it for the association, but they still want to try and make the tree nursery work. They already have cash invested in the project with the land, the well and the materials. We shall see.

I had forgotten Vieux's character a bit, but I was reminded of how good of a person after today. It would have been so easy for the association to sell the fencing off and have a made a windfall after I left. Instead he has guarded the materials and has been pushing to make this happen. He is also one of the most pious and devout people I have ever met. He doesn't push his religion in your face, but it eminates from him with everything he does. The idea of quality applies directly to him.

The Search for Chinois

This evening, I spent my time looking for my friend Chinois (he is the one on the left). His is so named because as a kid he caused problems for his parents and his grandmother thought he was a vagabond... so she said Chinois. You can guess what Malians think of the Chinese and the products they send to Mali.

Anyway, Chinois has been absent from his usual post at his boutique since I have gotten here, so I decided I would go on the hunt. I found his wife in the early evening selling food on the side of the road and she told me he has been farming during the day and has been too tired to work at the boutiqu at night. She got a little kid named Oof Diarra to walk me back to Chinois' house.

The walk turned out to be longer than I thought, but it was all right because Oof might be the coolest kid I have met since I showed up in Mali. This kid couldn't have been more than 9 years old but you would have thought he was 25. As we walked he was greeting adults and young woman. He was talking with them and joking with them... it was impressive. My mobile phone has a flashlight on it and he asked if he could use it, so I handed it over to him. He then started asking about how you call the United States on the phone. I asked him if he wanted to speak English to an American and he said yes. I took the phone back and called Carolyn (who is in England, but that's neither here nor there). I quickly said hi and handed the phone over to Oof. I could hear Carolyn say hello so I told him what to say... he did brilliantly.

I don't think I'm doing Oof justice, because this kid was amazing. When we arrived at Chinois' house, Chinois told me this kid hangs out with adults and they all like hanging out with him... super cool.

Anyway, I finally found Chinois who was, in fact, dog tired after working in the fields all day. He has a dinkey cart that takes him out to the fields which is very far away and must be incredibly hot. We hung out for a good long while and then I wanted to let him get to sleep. He insisted on walking me back to Coulibaly's house. I tried to let him go but in true Malian fashion, he wanted to give me the road.

When we showed up at the Coulibaly's house, Vieux had stopped by and given me a chicken and a rooster from the tree association. Super nice.

Sleep escapes me

Turns out a nice comfortable bed actually makes a difference... who would have thunk?

My bed in Yangasso is a mat on the ground outside. It's pretty flat but there are small rocks embedded into the ground that feel pretty damn big around 3:00am.

This morning, I began my yalla yalla (walking around and greeting people). I started by heading down to the empty market area of Yangasso. Since Tuesdays are market days, the rest of the week there is a huge expanse made up of gwas which are small structures with four wooden posts and the top covered with either millet stock or dried grass. It's a cool spot during the week where old men hang out and listen to the radio.

I ended up hanging out with Mamadou Tangara. We basically sat and listened to a griot tell a story on the radio. Every so often, Mamadou would ask me about the United States... about the weather, snow or American houses... it was as if I had never left.

I then took off to look for a friend of mine Madu Konate who makes jewelry. He had made a braclet for me before I left Mali in '05, but it was stolen when I was in South Africa. He was happy enough to make another one and said it would be done by 5:00pm today.

I then sat in his work area with his son as they made braclets and earings. Since there isn't a store where you can go to buy the tools for making jewelry, they make it all themselves. In order to heat metal, they have a fan belt from a car attached to the ground and they turn it by hand. the wind is funneled into a mud oven where there is burning coal. The coals are super-heated and they will put the metal in ceramic bowls right on top of the coals. It melts in a couple minutes and then begins the process of banging the shape of the jewelry out. They were making a man's braclet when I was there (much like the one I ordered) so they would hold the metal with a pair of pliers and then swing a hammer down on the metal. When they get going, it is a little bit like a drum beat. Two whacks on the metal and then a third on the anvil. Whack-whack-ting. Whack-whack-ting. Whack-whack-ting.

In the cities, there will be four or five guys making jewelry at the same time so you get fast-paced rhythm repeated on top of itself again and again, but here in Yangasso it was a much calmer beat. I don't meditate but watching Madu create that braclet has got to be close to the idea of meditation... I must have spent an hour sitting there staring, listening and thinking about absolutely nothing.

Around noon, Madu invited me back to his house to have lunch with his family. We had bashi, fish sauce and lait caille. I'm not entirely sure this is correct, but Bashi is millet couscous. Millet is ground down to a flour and then cooked with a little bit of water so the flour clumps together into little tiny balls. The bashi was great and afterwards, I had my first Malian siesta in a long while. I forgot how hot it is here and how normal it is to absolutely pass out between 1:30 and 2:30pm... Even during the rainy season, the hours after mid-day are so hot that it is difficult to stay conscious. The only thing to do is pass out and revive yourself with Malian tea afterwards.

I then headed down to the main boutique in Yangasso and officially greeted all the old men. They are the stalwarts of Yangasso. Always to be found hanging around and passing the time. I was an honorary member of the club while I lived here, so I was quickly welcomed back to my spot. Again, it was as if I had never left. We had a couple of the same conversations and then we proceeded to hang out and tell jokes.

Since it is the rainy season, most people are out in the fields during the day weeding around their millet and making sure the crops are all right. Apparently, there hasn't been much rain this season. People are beginning to wonder if the millet is going to make it. It's a good reminder of the careful balance of life in this area of the world. For the most part, Malians hover right above the cut-off for existence. As long as there is rain during the rainy season, they can grow enough millet to last them through the rest of the year. If there isn't enough rain or if there crops don't make it for some reason, the ability to exist disappears. Just like that, a little less rain turns a thriving successful community into one of those ads you see on television with starving children covered in flies.

This all makes me realize why the culture and society is so important... why there is this amazing hospitality here. It is something they can have and control no matter what happens during the year. It's what makes them Malians... they will laugh and they will enjoy life.

TW

Yangasso Tugunni

Morning: I slept in a bit, went out to San Lait and got some EXCELLENT frozen yogurt. I wondered if it would be as good as I thought it was when I was living here. I always thought my standards dropped, but it was still really tasty. Bought some meds at the pharmacy to relieve my aching stomach and headache... I think I forgot to mention I got ameobas while I was in Senegal. Although I wasn't excited to have them, the timing was pretty good. I was totally healthy all the way through the Putney Trip and only after dropping off the last kid did my body finally give out. Anyway, I got a Doctor friend in country to give me an armchair diagnosis of ameobas and I'me starting to feel better.

Rest of the day: Finally made it back to Yangasso. I basically got there and dropped my bag in the main boutique in the center of Yangasso. I walked around and tried to find my host family who moved out to the outskirts of Yangasso. When I finally got there, I found my host sister (Fatumata) sitting next to the road selling woso (sweet potato fries). She took me by the hand and started leading my back to the house... my host mother (Awa) saw me and came running out after me. It was a little ridiculous. After that, there were a bunch of people I don't really know and I was sat down in a chair for a good long while. My host dad (Bocadari) finally came back from the fields and was clearly happy to see me but the excitement lasted a very short amount of time and we quickly fell back into the same routine we had three years ago... it was equal parts cool and weird.

I then headed out to greet Diarra Coulibably, my Peace Corps work contact in Mali. I showed up at her house and somehow (accidently) snuck up on here. She was sitting there talking with her son and I ended up standing behind here and said good evening... she turned around and nearly fell over. I'm not entirely sure if it was the shock of seeing me or just seeing a white guy standing a foot away from here in the pitch dark. Anyway, she refused to let me go away without feeding me, so I ate a really great salad with some bread.

I then finally headed back out toward my host family's house and got royally lost on the way. In terms of where their new house is... over the river, through the woods and about five miles past grandmother's house. I had the added difficulty of a late rising moon, so I was walking around in the pitch dark. By the time I got to the right area, I sort of new where I was supposed to go, but there were guard dogs everywhere and they were all very displeased to see me. It took some trial and error and a couple of stones thrown in the direction of barking, but I finally made it to their house.

It was a bit late, but we started in on what our nightly ritual was back in the day... Balo, a friend of Bocadari's, starts talking about how much I like to eat beans (the national joke of Mali) and how he caught me once eating beans and licking the oil as it dripped down my arm. I then tell everyone the only reason Balo says that is because I caught him eating beans once with both his right hand AND his left hand (which is your poop hand). We then vehemently deny whatever the other says until we stop laughing. Soon after, Balo and Bocadari pull out a printed piece of paper that has the info for the day's horse races which I think take place in France somewhere. Every single night they go through this quasi-scientific ritual of deciding which order the first 4 horses will come in. I then mildly make fun of them for wasting their money and do quick calculations of how much money they would have if they saved that money versus losing it every night on the races...

600 CFA per week x 52 weeks = 31,200 CFA per year (roughly 80 USD)

31,200 CFA x 3 years (since I left) = 93,600 CFA (roughly 234 USD)

Anyway, I don't think my calculations ever impressed them enough to stop before, and it doesn't look like they are going to stop anytime soon... despite the fact they have NEVER won.

This is all a very long way for me to say, it is great to be back in Yangasso, and it's almost like I never left. The only major difference is the size of the family which has increased and decreased. Here is the tree...

Bocadari Coulibaly (Father)
m. Awa Coulibaly (Mother)

1. Fatumata (f, 13)
2. Aminata (f, 11)
3. Assita (f, 10)
4. BaDjenne (f, 4)
5. Aloo (m, 3)
6. Oumar (m, 2 months)

The decrease is Aminata who was promised to Bocadari's sister a long time ago (news to me) because she is unable to have children. I definitely thought she might have not made it, considering Mali terrible statistics of mortality for children under 16, but she is happy and healthy and apparently likes it better with her aunt (according to Awa).

Rock and roll.

TW

Big vs. Small

Forget to get this into the last one...

As the night was winding down, and I started asking questions about the family, Bocadari started talking about how big of a family they wanted. I had said I would want two or three children at most... Bocadari very plainly said he wanted 11 or 12 kids. All of sudden Awa piped-in and said she was done. She just had Oumar a couple months ago and said she is done being pregnent. The two of them started going back and forth... If Awa were to have 6 more kids that would be the next 7 or 8 years being pregnant and caring for an infant. She has basically spent the last 7 years doing the same... Yikes.

I all of a sudden realized Bocadari wasn't being as serious as he was messing around with Awa. He then said he could just get another wife. Awa turned to me and with a huge smile told me her husband was bad.

It was good to see them banter back and forth and joke around with each other. During my first stay in Mali, they seemed to have a really good working marriage, but I never really saw them having fun together. I don't know what happened over the last 3 years, but they now have a great time with each other. They clearly respect the other but they also have fun.

By the end of my time in the Peace Corps, my sense of marriage was there was a different standard of expectations in Mali. It seemed people looked for a mariage with shared interests and an ability to work together to bring a family up. I rarely saw what most Americans would call "love." I don't know if their feelings have grown over the years, or I just never saw it, but I can see it now and it is really nice.

Malian Transport

So I finally got up and out of Bamako. I had set up a Peace Corps ride with one of the coolest drivers in the country, Mohamed, but I ended up sleeping in a bit. I was unhappy I missed the free, fast ride up to Yangasso, BUT I was happier that I slept well. I think it is the first time I have really slept through the night without waking up in the good long while. I actually feel refreshed after sleeping. I don't know how it happened but I'm not going to complain.

Anyway, I ended up heading to the bus quartier, where all the major companies, and the not so major companies, leave for the interior of Mali. The two major companies, Bittar and Bani, had already sent their early morning buses so I decided to check out the cruddy transports and see what was up. The difficulty of using the lower-end transport is they do not have a set schedule and will only leave once the bus is full. My game was to find a transport that looked relatively full enough that I believed it would leave before 3pm (which is when the next Bittar bus was leaving). Low and behold, I found a bus who was promising to leave at 10:30am even if they weren't full. I waited a bit before I bought the ticket and around 10:00am things started looking good, so I bought a ticket... bad decision, Todd.

Around 11:30am, a group of Senegalese women who were in the same situation I was in decided to try and start a mini riot. They were yelling at everyone who worked for the bus company and a couple of people who were just sitting there. At one point, they almost collapsed the ticket booth with a couple people sitting inside... it was awesome. At that point, I started thinking I might have better luck with Bittar so I asked for my cash back. After the ticket taker refused, I told him I was going to go get a cop and we could discuss the situation together. He basically ignored me so I trotted off to go find any authority figure I could find. Keep in mind, I wasn't angry or upset like the ladies from Senegal... I was more or less bored and was passing the time. Anyway, it turns out there is a cop stationed near all the bus stations and when I walked in he took notes and then told me I needed a convocation. For anyone that speaks french, I still haven't figured out the exact meaning of the word, but it acted as an official writ from the police! So I wandered back to the bus and told the guys I had a convocation and the cop wanted to speak with them. I'm not joking around, they turned the bus on and we left in about 10 minutes. I keep wishing I knew that trick when I was here as a volunteer. Cripes that was great!

Anyway, I ended up sitting next to an English couple travelling through West Africa. They were pretty cool. Both teachers outside of London. I did a terrible job of telling them where Carolyn, my sister, lives and I did an equally terrible job of understanding where in the city they lived. They spoke French just about as well as Malians speak English, but they got things done. I was impressed. They just bowl through this country and don't look back.

So after my long journey up to the Segou region, I finally got close to Yangasso and it was pouring down rain and dark. I made the last minute decision to continue onto San and return to Yangasso in the morning. The idea of seeing everyone for the first time (since no one knows I am coming back) and getting my stuff settled during a monsoon didn't sound too inviting.

I made it up to the Peace Corps transit house in San around 9:30pm and plopped my stuff down. Sekou Coulibaly, the guardian, was there and was pretty surprised to see me. We spent roughly five minutes greeting eachother and saying "a kerra fami" until I noticed he was sporting a mohawk (it was dark and the hair had grown in a bit). Before I left the Peace Corps in 2005, I finally convinced Coulibaly to let me give him a mohawk. It's a pretty weird haircut to have in Mali, but I had told him about Mr. T and Glenn Plake so he went for it. I'm psyched he still keeps it up. **For Peace Corps folks: Coulibaly still has the cycle of growing his hair out and treating it with chemical straightener and then cuts it down... but now he cuts it down to the mohawk. He says it scares people.

There were also a couple volunteers there and we talked for a while. It was scary how comfortable it was to come back to San. It looks the same, just with a bit more dirt and grime, and the conversations with the PCVs was strikingly similar. We hung out and talked about the worthiness of Peace Corps development work, Peace Corps site selection process (or lack thereof) and food in America.

I also found a bunch of the books I read in Peace Corps with my stamp in it. I thought that was great.

All right, tommorow onto Yangasso.

Bamako Bamako

What has changed?

There are more motorcycles for sure. They have a new model called a Power-K that looks like a suped up moped (except it isn't really suped up) and they have Orange mobile phone service (ikatel got bought out).

What is different?

Not that much... example, for all you Mali folk; The unfinished building next to the old bridge, the one with the crane above it that NEVER moved while you were in country... it still has not moved.