Sorry for the excruciatingly long delay in posting; I know everyone has been waiting on the edge of their rolley chairs! In addition to projects keeping me busy, I've been entertaining some delightful visitors. My sister Amy flew in last month, and agreed to help me plant some trees at the site for the new school. While this sounds like a simple task, it proved to be a quite epic adventure. We bought 4 mango trees in Bamako, and by the time they reached their new home they had ridden on 8 different forms of transportation! We checked them under the bus (1) from Bamako to Segou, which broke down somewhere mid-way, and finally dropped us on the side of the road around 3 a.m. just outside Segou. With no taxi in sight, we hired a "push-push" driver (2), (similar to a wheelbarrow), to walk them, and our luggage, to the hotel. On the way there we hitched a ride in a good samaritan's car (3), with the trees poking out of the trunk. The next morning they rode in a taxi (4) to the bus stop, and then under the seats of a bachée (5) to Cinzana, where Kyle (my closest fellow volunteer) lives, and where we'd find the road to my village. Once there, they (both Amy and the trees) were piled onto a donkey cart (6) to Kyle's house, where we spent the night and had a fantastic chicken dinner.
The next morning we were up at sunrise to load them onto the roof of a van (7) that would drop them off in my village, 20 kilometers away.
While the trees sped down the road, Amy and I made the trip on bikes, arriving 3 and a half hours after them.
Once in my village, we took the rest of the day to rest, greet the chief, and clean up my mud hut. The next day was spent measuring the footprint of the new buildings on the site and staking out the spots for the trees, which were brought to the site tied to the back of a bike (8) and planted the following morning.
With the great mango epic concluded, Amy and I headed up to Mopti to see Dogon country. We did a 3 day hike up and back down a cliff, through animist villages and ancient granaries, then enjoyed a brief though scenic boat ride on the Niger river. (Amy might be able to tell you a different version of the story, but I'll leave that up to her.)
After the trip we hauled it back to my village, biking another 20K, to kill a goat and throw a party. Now, some of you might know that I'm not a big fan of small children, and I've spent the last year training them to stay away from my house. Amy, being a good-hearted kindergarten teacher, spent the entirety of the party tickling, playing frisbee with, and giving stickers to the little kids. A whole year of hard work ruined in one day. They keep asking when she's coming back...
I had a couple weeks after Amy's visit to work on projects, although some inevitable setbacks kept me from getting much done. Even though we can't start digging the well until after the rainy season, we can start to make the bricks now, saving some time later on. I purchased 60 bags of cement in Cinzana, and arranged for some people from my village to come pick them up on donkey carts. When the day arrived, I got a phone call saying that another baby had died in my village, and we'd have to wait until the next day to transport the cement. The next day came and we loaded up the carts. A few hours later I got another phone call saying that it had started raining on the road, and some of the bags had gotten wet. They weren't too badly damaged, so we arranged to start work the day the well technician was scheduled to come. The day came, but the technician didn't. He had come down with malaria, and would be unable to start for a few days.
In the midst of all this mayhem, after some delayed flights and a little confusion about dates, my boyfriend Seth flew in. He survived the 20K ride to my site, was greeted by the entire council of elders, and received a warm welcome from the chief, after whom he was named (Isa Coulabaly). Since he's here, I'll let him tell the rest in his own words:
Hello everyone; Seth here. The trip to get here was certainly eventful. After missing my connecting flight in New York, I spent the night at JFK waiting to get put on the next flight to Casablanca. Unfortunately, that meant waiting around until 8:40 p.m. Luckily, however, I met an exceedingly nice Moroccan man and his family who had also missed the flight, which made the time pass easier. Getting into Casablanca at 8:30 a.m., I had (after a little help from Hicham (the gentleman I met in New York) to get me to the right gate) an exciting 16 hour wait for my flight to Bamako. Not having foreseen some of the difficulties of international travel, I was not prepared for the fact that the airport did not accept plastic currency. Luckily, I had a bag of trail mix in my carry-on and enough American money to buy a bottle of water. Needless to say, I passed the time mostly by sleeping. My travels ended at about 4:45 a.m. when I got to the Bamako airport and found Mary waiting for me (luckily, as there was some mix up about when exactly I would be arriving!) with a taxi to take us into the city.
Since that initial difficulty, it has been a wonderful trip. Mary was kind enough to ease me into Malian life so as not to overwhelm me right at first. We spent the first day in Bamako, enjoying air conditioning and good food. I was able to meet some of the other volunteers here and find out a little bit more about the Peace Corps life. Then, we headed off to Segou, where I was once again pampered by getting a ride on a Peace Corps shuttle (with comfortable seats and air conditioning!). After Bamako, Segou was a nice contrast: While Bamako is a big, bustling city, Segou is much easier to take in. We spent a day there as well, enjoying good food once again and air conditioning at the hotel. The next day would begin my real Malian experience.
Getting out to Mary's site, we had to wait at a stand for whatever available transportation came our way. Mary always says that one thing she has learnt here is patience, and that certainly held true in this case. While we waited, I got to try my first real Malian food...rice with peanut sauce from a street vendor. It was actually quite good, and I even tried a little bit of cow stomach. Amazingly, our luck with transportation held, and we were able to catch a ride with two guys in a nice jeep. Even more astonishing, the passenger of the jeep had spent two years studying entymology in Columbus, Ohio. A small world indeed! The car dropped us of in Cinzana, where we were greeted by the sight of a celebration for the Japanese ambassador's arrival to the village. Probably the starkest moment of that party was the crowd of men with old muzzle-loader rifles firing their guns into the air; the noise was unbelievable!
After spending the night in Cinzana (my first time under a mosquito net, as well as my first experience of eating Malian fashion (with my hands)), we prepared for the trek out to Mary's village.
Considering the fact that the longest consecutive ride I've taken on a bike since I was a child has been about a mile, then 12.5 miles out to Tongo was a slightly daunting proposition. It is a beautiful ride through the country (even if at the time I was not in the best condition to appreciate it), and it was a pleasure to finally see Mary's village. The people there are beyond nice and spent no time in making me feel welcome.
We spent the next couple of days at her site, relaxing during the day and greeting people at night. It was a little strange to hang out with people when I have no grasp of the language, but of course Mary made it easier on me. I got to enjoy the Malian tea ceremony quite a few times, which is a fascinating processes to watch, and delicious to indulge. After a few days, it turned out that we had to return to Segou to purchase some materials for Mary's project, which entailed another bike ride to Cinzana, after which I got to experience another form of transportation, the reconditioned charter bus.
Spending another night in Segou, we returned to Cinzana the next day, replete with wheelbarrow and shovels. As we walked with them down the early morning streets of Segou, we received a multitude of humored stares and comments about the white people walking with a wheelbarrow. Luckily, a passing donkey cart was kind enough to pick us up and take us to the place where we could find a bachée to transport us and the tools to Cinzana, The wait was a short one, and luckily the bus was going past Tongo, so we were able to get the driver to drop the stuff of at the village while we spent the night in Cinzana, biking back to Tongo the next. This bike ride was the easiest, and the most beautiful. We left in the afternoon, so we didn't have to worry about beating the noon heat and were able to take out time and enjoy the scenery. After spending another day in Mary's village, we came back to Segou (another bike ride...50 miles in six days!), where I finally met Mary's friend Amy. We had a fun night, including a walk down to the river for sunset and sharing a drink with a crippled poet of Mary's acquaintance.
The next day, we came back to Bamako by charter bus, then went for a quick trip to Siby, which is about an hour south of the city. Siby is a truly beautiful part of Mali, up in the mountains with some wonderful opportunities for hiking. The way the wind and rain of carved out the rock is truly beautiful, and there are apparently some gorgeous waterfalls in the area, although we didn't spend enough time there to really experience them.
Overall, the trip has been amazing. It is nice to finally experience first hand what Mary's has been talking about during the past year. The people here are among the nicest I have ever met, and I can honestly say that I like this country (although I'm not sure that I could live here; it makes for me even more impressive what Mary has done). I'm glad I came during rainy season, as I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have been able to function had the weather been any hotter. I'm sad to have to leave tomorrow, but I'm happy that I was able to make this trip and see a part of what that past year has been for Mary. It has definitely been more than worth it.
