Bad Apples

I feel like I sometimes sugar-coat things when talking about my experiences here, so in this post I'm gunna tell it how it is and say a few words about harassment. Being a young, white, unmarried woman is not an easy thing in this culture. Every conversation with a male Malian goes one of two ways; in the first scenario, he asks if I'm married, I say no, he asks if I will marry him, I ask why, he says he wants to marry a white woman, I say no, he asks if I'm racist. In scenario number two he asks if I'm married, I say yes, he says where is your husband, I say he's in America (or Bamako, or Segou, or wherever), he asks if my husband is white, I say yes, he asks if I'm racist. I say, yes, obviously I'm racist since I chose to live in Africa for two years doing development work!
In addition to marriage proposals and accusations of racism, lets talk about physical harassment. The other day I was buying sugar at a boutique, and a man grabbed my ass. I turned around and yelled at him, and then he LAUGHED. And the other men sitting around watching also laughed. I don't know which was more infuriating - the harassment or the absolute lack of respect conveyed by the laughter.
Later that day, walking through the city, I was followed by a group of children chanting "tubabu" (white person) and asking for money. When I said 'no' and walked on, they began throwing rocks at me. I turned around and yelled at them, and they laughed.
These bad apples, of which there are many, make it necessary to approach every situation with caution, and make it difficult to trust even the good apples, of which there are also many. It's easy to forget, after a bad experience, about the abundance of wonderful people I've met here and it's easy to write off all Malians as peccant and offensive.

This kind of harassment has never occurred in my village. There, I feel like a welcome addition to the community. Everyone knows my name, and shows me an incredible amount of respect and hospitality. It's a welcome change after leaving the anonymity vexation of the city.

Send Me Some Ice!

It's been so long since my last post I don't even know where to start. There have been a lot of developments with my school project. We're definitely going ahead with it and my village couldn't be more excited. I think I was hesitant at first to get going because I wasn't sure if it was something that the village really needed or it was just my own interest in doing a construction project, but after many community meetings I'm convinced that it's definitely a beneficial project for the village. I learned that the construction of a new schoolhouse in Tongo has been on the "5-year plan" of the commune for a long time, but there was never enough resources and organization to make it happen. Some things have already been set in motion, though. Last year the village secured a plot of land and had it surveyed. They led me out to the site and I was amazed to see that they had already staked out exactly where they want the new building and already built a house for the new teachers! I also met with the mayor of the commune who was incredibly enthusiastic and agreed to do what it takes to hire more teachers. There are currently 2 teachers in Tongo, and the school goes from the first to the fourth grade. Yet since there are only 2 classrooms and 2 teachers, first and second grade students attend in the morning and third and forth grade attend in the afternoon. The "premier cycle" of the educational system here is 6 grades, after which you pass on to second cycle, then high school, then college (if you're lucky and not needed to work in the fields). But the closest school with fifth and sixth grade is 20 kilometers away. Most students in Tongo complete the fourth grade and never go on past that. So the plan is to construct a 6 room school house with 6 teachers. The building also incorporates a large rainwater catchment system to be used for irrigation in the garden. The design is finished, and I'm now in the process of pricing all the materials. Everything is going to be built by the community and everything except the sheet metal and columns for the roof is local, sustainable material. We're using compressed earth bricks and a rammed earth foundation. I'm even trying to convince them that we can make some window screens out of a calabash.
The first step now is to get water. I just submitted a grant proposal to get funding to dig a well on the site, which we can hopefully finish before the millet harvest. We're scheduled to start construction of the school in January and it would be nice if we had water on the site first!
I definitely feel like I'm challenging myself with this project, working as architect, contractor, and construction manager. The hardest part for me is knowing when to admit that I need help with things and then asking for it. I'm also realizing that the level of community participation that I advocated in my thesis is extremely difficult to achieve - at least much more so than I expected! Coordinating illiterate villagers to take up responsibilities like putting together and managing a budget is a task that I never anticipated or addressed in my thesis, but which I now realize is one of the most useful skills that I can transfer.

In the meantime, I'm still having a great time here, filled with innumerable wonderful experiences. I just got back from a brief trip to Bamako where I ate so much delicious food! Now it's back to snot sauce as I return to my village. Although I must confess that I'm kind-of starting to like the food... It's hot season here, which is pretty close to unbearable. Even the Malians don't move out of the shade between 10am and 5pm. I hear it's spring in America? How's that going for ya'll?