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?

I Heart Dakar

Senegal was amazing. I couldn't get over how developed it is; Dakar is like a little new york city.





Our team did pretty well at the softball tournament, but our biggest success was our uniforms: dogon hats and bogolan shirts - very Malian.





Between games, I got in a lot of good beach time, too.





Ah, the beach...




I also got to explore Dakar a little, and went to the African Art Museum (IFAN), whice is supposed to be the best in West Africa. But if this is the best, I'd hate to see the worst. I was mostly disapointed by the 'modern' art section (although happy that they even HAD a modern art section).





The rest of the museum was mostly displays of masks and costumes used in ceremonies.



One display in particular was especially interesting. ...When I first got to Segou, and was furnishing my house, I bought a blanket at the market that was really neat looking - black and white checkers and really soft. It's been on my bed ever since and was great during the cold season. However, I learned at the museum that it is, in fact, the burial blanked used in traditional ceremonies. Oops.





The way back from Dakar was possibly the hardest journey I've ever made. Not because it was tough to leave behind the beach and all the good food, but because transportation is TERRIBLE. On the way there, I was reading a book on international development, emphasizing the importance of developing the infrastructure for landlocked countries to have access to shipping ports. Ironically, the road was so bad that I could barely focus on the words on the page.



On the way home, I had planned to take the train all the way to Bamako, and was really excited about the idea of seeing the country side in such a romantic way, but it derailed on it's way into Senegal and was out of service. So I was stuck on a hot bus for 4 days that kept breaking down, was stuck on the side of the road several times for many hours, and generally sucked.

I did get to at least SEE the train station, though, and got to go inside one of the old cars. Maybe next year...




But I got back to Segou in one piece, and decided to extend my vacation by a few days and go see the village across the river where they fire all the pottery that's sold in the market here. We took an hour long boat ride, and got there just in time to see them lighting the fires. Rather than baking the pots in a kiln, they stack them on the ground, cover them with sticks and grasses, and light the whole pile on fire.

Building With Dirt

I just got back from Bamako, after attending the TERRA 2008 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EARTHEN ARCHITECTURE! It deserves all caps, because it was just that exciting. I met hundreds of people from all over the world who love building with dirt as much as I do! Who knew? And they all wanted to give me lots of money to build this school that I'm working on. So yay! It was all fantastic. We talked about different ways to build with dirt, different ways to preserve earthen structures, what additives to mix with earthen mortar, how to stabalize earthen structures with bamboo to resist earthquakes, and so many other fun topics! And it all happened right in my own back yard: Bamako!

So here's the update on the school project:

This is the condition of the current school:





The village is totally stoked about the idea, and I'm trying to keep them included in every step of the process. When I get back to site, I'm going to work for a day with the kids in the school to draw pictures of what they want the new building to look like. Then we're having a community meeting to look at the kids drawings, my interpretations of them, and get any other input that people feel strongly about.
We're leaning toward using compressed earth bricks, because the village wants concrete, which is expensive and not really available locally, over adobe bricks, so we settled in the middle with compressed earth bricks. I'm still looking for engineers to help with the water harvesting system.

As for the women's garden, things have started growing, and a few of the plots are doing great. We're having a little trouble with chickens getting in and eating everything, so the next step looks like we'll have to improve the fence, either by getting a metal fence, or planting really thorny bushes all around it.




All of the millet harvesting is finished, so the village is now busy with adobe brick production to fix up their houses before the rainy season:




I'm off to Senegal in a few days, to play softball, lay by the beach, and eat fish! I couldn't be more excited.

p.s. This is the inside of my house (since I've never posted a picture of it):
Cozy, huh?

And then I found five dollars....

I gotten a lot of requests to translate that last line, so here's the story that goes with it: I came into Segou for new years eve, and took a boat ride on the river to watch the sun set with some friends. While we were on the boat we saw some fireworks (Malians celebrate new years, too!). I tried to ask the word for fireworks in bambara: A be fo cogodi ni tasuma be sanfe? (translation: How is it called when fire is in the sky?). And the answer I got was "Tasuma be sanfe" (fire in the sky). This might be a 'had to be there' moment, but it says something about the literalness of the language that continually cracks me up.
Anyway, I'm back in Segou having finished another round of training. I'm really looking foreward to getting back to my village, as I now have several exciting project ideas that I need to go over with them. I've been talking to Engineers Without Boarders (another volunteer service organization) about collaborating on the construction of a real school building in my village (made out of more than sticks and leaves) that incorporates large scale rainwater harvesting for irrigation in the garden. Nothing is certain yet, but the project would take care of several of my village's biggest needs - education, access to water, and small scale income generation (i.e. selling the produce from the garden), so I'm working hard to make it happen.
I don't know when I got so busy! I'll be back in Bamako in a little over a week to attend a conference on Earthen Architecture, then I'm off to Senegal for the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST). Lots of fun ahead.
Please keep me posted on how all of YOU are doing!

Tasuma be Sanfe de!

Sorry for the short christmas post, but, as promised, I can write more often now that I'm in Bamako for a few weeks, with all the luxuries of the modern world. We tried to watch the OSU game last night, huddled together under discarded refugee blankets at 1 in the morning, but it wouldn't stream fast enough from the internet, so we gave up. I heard they lost anyway. Tonight we're taking advantage of the CNN access here to watch the New Hampshire primaries. We'll take what we can get.
What brings me to Bamako, other than internet and CNN, is the second phase of technical training. In between football games and catching up with all the other volunteers, we're learning methods for digging wells, irrigating gardens, composting, etc., and also how to find funding for such projects.

I mentioned refugee blankets - yes, it's freezing here! I didn't take them seriously when they said that cold season was coming, but it's true! I'm wearing sweaters and sitting around fires to keep warm.

A be fo cogodi ni tasuma be sanfe?

All I got for Christmas was giardia

After Tabaski, I headed down to Bamako to spend Christmas with some friends. Warm weather and the pace of the big city snuffed out much of the holiday feel, but we celebrated christmas eve toasting wine and cheese cozily at our hotel. Even though Bamako offers 'real food' such as hamburgers and ice cream, we ate our Christmas dinner at an egg shack, and headed out to watch some live music. That's when it hit me. I spent the rest of christmas in the bathroom, humming carols.