Recent News

2 weeks ago, I was in Bamako for the Food Security Taskforce meeting. I'm the representative for the San area. Technically San is in the Segou region, but because the regions are so big, we split them up in two parts- San and Segou. For a country to be "food secure", it's population must have access all year round to food of both caloric and nutritious quantities for daily activity. Most parts of Mali are not food secure. There is a period in the year known as the "starvation" period, where all the grain harvested at the previous harvest season is gone, this usually coincides with the period of farming. Throughout the rest of the year, many parts of Mali is also considered "food insecure" because they do not receive the proper amounts of nutrients in their diet. Malian cuisine is about quantity, not quality. You will never see a Malian eat a salad, regardless of the quantity, and then say that they are full. For them, lettuce, tomatoes, etc... are considered Toubab food and have no affect on their meal. If they have not eaten rice, millet, or couscous, they have not eaten. Often their caloric intake may be substantial, but they rarely eat meat (it's expensive), and will almost never have vegetables, so they are susceptible to disease and malnutrition. Adding ground baobab leaves to their sauces is the most common way to add nutrients and minerals to their diet.

So the Taskforce, is a group of volunteers that have gotten together (this was started a couple years ago) to work on compiling information/projects, and resources, as well as advising the Peace Corps Mali administration on what aspects to train volunteers. Being rather new, we had to essentially define our role and figure out the next few steps and increase enthusiasm with volunteers to work on food security projects. USAID is working with Peace Corps and providing a substantial amount of financial support for Peace Corps projects in this area. The thing about food security, is that it transcends the "sector" boundaries. In Peace Corps Mali there are sectors: education, water sanitation, health education, environment, and small/medium enterprise development. Yet food security involves every sector. If people do not know how to properly wash their hands or use soap, they may not be food secure. By getting an association of women together to make a community garden you are working on food security on two fronts. In one sense you are helping increase the amount of vitamins that can be locally bought and consumed, and another sense, you are increasing the income of women which will allow them to buy imported rice or food during hungry season. A project that could involve education is a cereal bank. This is a project that I hope to do in the future with a CGS (school board). A cereal bank is where a group buys grain during the harvest when it's cheap and resells it during hungry season where grain is scarce for a profit. They can then use the profits for buying school materials or improving the quality of the classrooms. This project can also be sustainable because theoretically they should be able to buy grain again soon after selling it and slowly grow in the amount of grain they buy and the profit they make. But to do this, they need to have access to a good granary, ensure proper accountability among members as to where funds and how funds are used, and get members involved with the selling of the grain at the proper time.

Anyways, it was a productive meeting, and outlined a couple key things for us and the administration. What I will be planning is what we're calling the "Poverty Fast". Not sure when it is, but what it is, is a week, or a couple weeks, where we (any volunteer), or anybody back home, live under the level of poverty, which I believe is defined as living with under $1 a day. For me that represents 450-500 CFA. When I do it, I'll definitely let everyone know. It'll be much more difficult for everyone in the States, but if you want to try you'd be more than welcome to join us.

The past week though was really crazy. I made my own world map mural. Doing it by myself took a really long time. I spent at least 3 hours making the grid, 3 hours drawing, and then more like 7 or 8 to paint, label, and touch it up. Fortunately I had access to the room at night, so I worked on it then. They really appreciated it and think it's really pretty. I plan on later showing the history/geography student teachers how to make the map themselves and going to the high school where they can practice it. The ones that come, will get a photo copy of the instructions. This will allow them to reproduce it in school rooms when they go elsewhere in Mali to teach. Mali has a lack of resources, and if they can learn how to make a map that stays on the wall, they no longer have to give a copy of the world to every student, they can just point to the map and explain their lesson. This was at night. During the day, I was planning a massive tree planting on the grounds of the IFM. I went to each class and explained that they had a choice of 5 trees for their class and gave them a list of trees, and told them they would receive a small plot of land where they were to dig thee 5 holes and plant the trees and told them what day/time we would start. The traditional way of doing things here, is that the administration organizes something, then one or two people plan it out, and then the day of, they tell the students as they finish classes that they have to go plant these trees. The students are never asked their opinion, if it's what they want, or told in advance. As a result, the students later complain about how the administration does things and never takes them into account even though they are the ones expected to do the work. This is the way they wanted me to do this. I refused and I originally wanted to take my time, where we would have several days, or over a period of several weeks where we would have a session on how to do the PLASA method (an amazing way of planting trees that allows us to plant trees in the middle of hot season and only have to give a liter of water a week to the plant), and a session on how to properly make fencing with branches (because animals eat the trees since they aren't tied up), and then dig the holes, water/fertilize them for a while and then plant the trees. Buuuttt... they told me to accelerate the project. They wanted to do it as soon as possible, but I'm going on a trip (which I just started today and will talk about in a bit). Therefore, if I wanted to be involved and have the students properly involved, I had to do it Thursday. So Wednesday, we went and bought the trees, I made out a list for the time slot the classes could have so that everyone had time with the dabas (digging tools), and so that things would run smoothly. Buuuuttt.... more than half the professors left for a training session that day, so very few classes had class, and of course they didn't want to leave and come back, so they said they wanted to dig the holes immediately. And the ones that did have class didn't listen to the time slots anyways. So I had 10 dabas for over 70 people all trying to get their holes together at the same time. For the next 3 hours, I ran around the IFM grounds telling classes where to dig, assigning jobs for people to get branches for fencing, rocks for the PLASA method, explaining the PLASA method as quickly as possible, making sure the dabas got to the next group as quickly as possible, making sure each class (the classes that didn't specifically ask for trees didn't get any, we're planning on doing another planting later with 40 more trees) got the trees they asked for, trying to explain to classes why they didn't have tree (because they didn't respond), checking the holes, answering questions about taking care of the trees afterwards, and at the same time receiving criticism by the administration who said that the fencing was bad and the animals would eat all the trees, and that we should have dug the holes, watered and fertilized for a week before actual planting and because we didn't all the trees would die and all the IFM money was wasted. Anyways, it was a very hectic day, but I think overall it went well. The students were very enthusiastic and felt invested because the 5 trees they planted "belonged" to them which means that they will be more willing to take care of the trees in the future. Last night, at least 8 of the trees had been completely stripped of leaves, which is rather disheartening, but they were in a very vulnerable position on the grounds, and I think with enough watering they should survive.

My moringa trees (the magic tree that will save the world, I'll post more about this later when I'm not as tired and I'll post a powerpoint presentation about it another time) are growing alright, so I'll do a proper PLASA training when I plant those.

So right now I'm on my way to Senegal for WAIST - the West Africa International Softball Tournament which is just a big gathering for all Americans ex-pats. Hopefully I can stop by the Gambia at some point as well. Should be back at site by the end of February. Also stopping by Nioro for the festivities of Mohammed's birthday and hang out with my old host family for a couple days. So many travels ahead, should be fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wDq17zyN0&feature=player_embedded

Probably not as funny to those who aren't volunteers, but we had a good laugh when we found it with our new awesome internet capabilities that loads videos super-fast.

Internet!

So, I've been saying that I would have more regular internet, and every time I say that, it doesn't happen. But now it's true!! My regional capital is San, which is 45km from my site (2.5 hours on my bike, 1 hour by public transport assuming everything goes well) and in which the Peace Corps has a house, just had internet installed! San is also my banking town (my town doesn't have banks), so I come in regularly to withdraw money. Today was market day at my site and tomorrow is San's market day, so when I jumped on the bus to go to San, I wasn't very surprised when there were more goats in the bus (tied up and placed under the seats) than there were humans (some of them hanging onto the back door). Normally the goats and sheep go on top, but on top of the car were quite a few crates of chickens and rice sacks. When goats are tied up, shoved under seats, and terrified of the humans stepping really close to their faces, they get scared and results in a very loud bus ride.

Work

I realize that I didn't clarify. The reason I'll have access more regularly is because there are internet cafes in San, which is either a 1 hour drive, or a 3 hour bike ride from my site.

Before leaving my site, I finally felt comfortable with the community. Before language IST, I did not feel integrated and that bothered me, but after another 2 weeks, I realized that the community did understand what I wanted to do and why I was there. I can't say that I was fully integrated, but my days were packed with meeting with people, chatting, and making time for cooking. Whereas at the beginning I felt overwhelmed with boredom and felt slight animosity from certain people, particularly kids who wanted (and didn't receive) gifts, I felt a lot more at home and it was very nice to be back. I had begun to eat a lot more with Ede Haidara (the man who I adopted as my host dad) and his family who accepted me as their son, and having adopted a dog, I felt really comfortable. I did unfortunately have to leave the dog back in Nioro, and I'm sad to say that less than a week ago I got a phone call saying he had died after eating something weird.
The kids were much more agreeable when they realized that I was there to stay and that I really did want to work with them. Actually, they began helping me out with things. One time there was a kid who stole a pen after coming over for tutoring, and the other kids saw him using it in class, so they stole the pen back and gave it to me the next day.
Actually, one day two girls came up to me and told me there was a guy who wanted to break in an steal some of my stuff (this was when I had first gotten to Nioro). So, rather than get scared, I decided to diffuse the situation. I asked them the name of the man who wanted to break in, his name was LK. I asked them where he lived and if they could take me there. I followed them to his house and began chatting with him and his siblings and his aunt. After a couple hours of chatting about nothing in particular, I told him I had to go. So he walked me back to my house and insisted that I was his great friend and that we had to chat more often. From then on, he was very happy to see me and never tried to break in.

The work I was doing in Nioro:
My primary work was integrating into the community and improving my Bambara. But every day I went to the CAP (an organization established for helping the schools with organization) and hung out for a bit. There I found a French version of the Koran, so I started reading that. Otherwise, occasionally I would go to a school or two and chat with the director. One of the schools, I was working with to help them enclose the school and I was planning on painting a world map. Monday-Friday I was having kids over for tutoring, and Saturdays I had English teachers come over in order to form an "English Club for Teachers" to improve teacher solidarity and English pronounciation. Interestingly, the teachers in Nioro were not very close and were actually competing against one another. Malians love demonstrating their knowledge, and if they can speak English, they do so in order to show other Malians that they are more educated. So teachers do not have the same friendships as in the States. We were working on pronounciation because Malians have never learned English from an English speaker, and so their pronounciation is terrible because the teachers they learned from didn't have the knowledge to teach them properly.
I had also found an organization called the Association for the Sustainable Development of Niorodu Sahel, which was an incredible find! I was super excited to find them because this was exactly what I was trying to do. It was also run by the richest and most involved citizens of Nioro and so they were willing to spend a little more to create change. One of the things they wanted to do was become sustainable as an organization. This is extremely important, because it's very difficult to continue funding something when you don't see results yourself, and it is frustrating and unreliable to constantly ask NGOs and external organizations for funding. Therefore, I was very supportive of this. But what they wanted to do was start a modern restaurant, which is a really good idea since there are no restaurants in Nioro, but I tried pointing out to them that restaurants are very risky and it would take a long time before they began to see a profit. Although it will help, they should start with something smaller. So I met with some of them individually to propose a hookah cafe. I figured this would be a good idea because it incorporates everything that Malians already do, and add a certain degree of novelty. Malians already, 1) sit around not doing much, 2) chat, 3) smoke... a lot, and 4) drink tea... even more than smoking, and 5) I had been talking to a lot of young people, and they were complaining that they did not have a location where they could go to hang out. Hookahs are significantly less expensive, more easily maintained, and there aren't any in Nioro, but I have seen some in Bamako. The demand is there, and the novelty of hookahs would attract the young crowd. So I thought this could be a cool enterprise that I could guide them through and try to develop to support this group. Not sure yet if they followed through, but I really hope that they don't give up on it because I'm not there anymore. There was also a member of the organization who wanted to start a fish farm, which is an excellent idea because there aren't any rivers around and so fish is very hard to come by if it isn't dry, and even then, it's very expensive.
Another guy I met was extremely enthusiastic about 2 things: planting trees, and building sink pits. Sink pits are holes that has certain stones in them that help absorb water that drains out of the nyegens (bathrooms), which cuts down on standing water (reducing the mosquito population and the transmition of malaria) and human excrement in the streets (usually nyegens drain out of the house and into the streets). He is currently applying for a PCV but I was really looking forward to working with him. I was also trying to get him and a school director together to plant trees in the school yard because the school doesn't have any shade and all the trees the school director tries to plant get eaten by the animals since the school isn't surrounded.
Please understand that the amount of work I was doing or had planned is very unusual, and none of it had come to fruition. My ability to speak French was the reason I was able to express myself and properly understand the needs of the community. Generally Peace Corps volunteers do not begin significant work in their first 3 months at site, and although I was working on the ground work, nothing had actually gone beyond discussing it with the appropriate people.

Leaving Nioro was definitely a mixed blessing. I left a place that was very welcoming and had an awesome energy in terms of development and wanted to improve their city and came to a very quiet town that everybody has said is lazy and unmotivated. I have to learn another language and restart completely. But, I do get to restart, and Nioro wasn't perfect. I was isolated from other volunteers and in a very conservative Islamic culture that sometimes pushed my patience when getting into religious discussions (which I tried to avoid, but was impossible). The Bobo people are a bit more reclusive, but that could also be because it is so much smaller. Definitely looking forward to getting to know the site and get started. But before I do, I'll be going to Dogon country for Christmas, and then Segou for New Years. This is resulting in a bit of what we call "site guilt", but I know that I want to spend Christmas and New Years with volunteers since it will be my first Christmas/New Years away from home. Also, going back to site for a few days and then leaving, and then going back to site for a few days, and then leaving is extremely difficult for the community because it confuses them and does not make it look like I am serious about working with them.

Also, if anybody is interested in my post a while back about first world countries and companies making third world countries dependent on them, read the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and/or An Economist's Tale. Good books that kind of go into what I was talking about with Malians being dependent on NGOs, only I was talking more about a psychological and cultural dependency rather than strictly an economic dependency. Oh, and if anybody wants a souvenir with Barack Obama's face on the front let me know. There are backpacks, belts, duffel bags, cookies, flip flops, all with Obama's face on the front. And if you didn't know, Obama is Malian, he is also Fulani (an ethnic group), he is Muslim and he is president of Africa and the world.... according to Malians.

A Whole New World

Currently back in Tubaniso for IST (In-Service Training). From now on, I'll have more regular internet access because my world was essentially flipped upside down about 4 weeks ago. I received a call roughly 4.5 weeks ago telling me that the American Government had lowered the limit of operations for Peace Corps staff. This meant that they believed Nioro du Sahel to be too far North and that they would have to change my site, which was an incredible shock to me. I had spent 2 months trying as hard as possible to integrate into my site and was really getting to know the community when I got this call. Basically, they believe that Al Qaeda is too active in Mauritania and since I was a half hour drive from the border, they decided to move me for security issues. This happened at a time when I was finally getting work done and feeling like a part of the community. I was mentally prepared to stay there for 2 years, and all that changed in the matter of minutes. They let me stay until Tabaski or Seliba (literally big party as opposed to selifitini which is little party which occurs after Ramadan) in Bambara. I had gotten to know some of the Sherif's family really well and insisted that I stay because there were a lot of foreigners coming into town to celebrate and I really wanted to see how it happened in a conservative Muslim town. So I got to celebrate with my host family. The way they celebrate this holiday is by killing a goat, cooking the meat in various ways and feasting for the next 3 days. Everybody makes jokes about how they are going to eat meat until they have diahrrea, which is funny until it actually happens to you. Now I am in the Segou region, near the city of San. I also have to learn Bomu, the language of the Bobo people who are primarily farmers. I have changed my name again, it is now Motien Diarra, which means "the man who does not lie"/"the man who only tells the truth", which I figured would help me earn trust in the community. Most people that I met wanted me to take on the last name Diassana, which is the last name of the people who founded Tominian (my new site), and the name of the currently dugutigi. It also means leader, but I already get a lot of people calling me leader or important person, and so I really don't want to perpetuate that thought and so I kept Diarra. Also, Diassana is a very Bobo name, and currently, I can't speak Bomu, so by keeping Diarra I'm trying to demonstrate that I am not fully Bobo and that I can speak Bambara... kind of.
So in reality there is an obscene amount of information I want to post, so I'll post little bits at a time.
Now, if you want to mail things to me, please mail them to:

Mario Romero
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 75
San, Mali

I am now significantly closer to other volunteers and it is absolutely true when they say that every Peace Corps volunteer has a different experience. Already, in the 2 weeks I was at my new site, I have had an entirely different experience and developed a new perspective on Mali as a whole.

The People I've Met

Since I’ve been in Mali, I’ve met a lot of different people. Since I greet just about everybody I pass by in the street, I meet some interesting people and some that are not so interesting. Some just ask me for money, some pass by me just after greeting, and others are genuinely interested in why I’m in Mali, what I plan to do, and where I come from. Daily, I pass by store owners, butchers, street food vendors, tailorers, taxi drivers, bums, imams, bread sellers, the entire market, students, many people who have jobs I don’t recognize, many others that I question whether or not they actually have a job, and quite a few that actually tell me they don't have a job.
One of the more memorable people I’ve met in Mohammed Mahoud Haidara. The last name Haidara implies that he is a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. He lives across the street from my concession and has a store connected to his own concession. We chat often and I’d say I hang out more with him and his son than anybody else. Knowing him has led to more than I would have realized before. He had told me many times that Boue Haidara was a Sherif (I hope I spelled it properly). This means that he is an Islamic leader. It turns out that he is the most prominent Islamic leader in all of Mali, Mauritania, and essentially all the countries around Mali. One day I was having a bad day and I spent almost all day in the house. I came out to hang out a bit and Mr. Haidara flags down a car. He introduces me to this guy named Cheik Haidara, a direct son of the Sherif, and tells me that he spent time in the States. After talking about where I was from, I find out that he’s a wolverine and did both his bachelor’s and his master’s degree at the UofM. He spent 15 years in the States and is currently working in Bamako. The only reason he was in Nioro was to visit his father, or his “old man” as he liked to put it. So for the next week we’d hang out for a few hours at night. I took the opportunity of knowing somebody who spoke English to propose going to meet the Sherif himself. I put on the duloki-ba (literally large shirt, but it’s the robe that the Moors wear) that the Hairdaras gave me and met one of the most influential religious leader in Mali. I essentially just told him who I was, what I was doing and that I had come just to greet him and tell him that I was there. He seemed very happy with that and told me that I was now under his protection and that if I had any questions or any problems, to come talk to him and he would help me out. I expected him to give off a presence or an aura, but he felt like a regular 75 year old man. He was very calm and reserved and very tolerant. It seemed that he would legitimately answer any questions with understanding and never get offended. But it was the people around him that were taking in every word he said, that had this constant awe when around him, and could not wait to have the honor of speaking to him that demonstrated the respect and influence he carried. I had never been in front of a religious leader and was very nervous because I didn’t want to make any cultural mistakes and really didn’t know what to ask although I was assured many times that he wouldn’t get offended and would be more than willing to ask anything I wanted.

I’ve met a guy that only speaks to me in Spanish. He claims to have been to Spain and lists off the cities where he was, but everybody says he’s crazy. The weird thing is that I’ve been focusing so much on Bambara that even though I understand everything he is saying, I can’t think of words or respond in Spanish (rather embarrassing). Another guy I’ve met that everybody says is crazy is this guy who thinks he’s a king. He comes to the store across the street every afternoon and hangs out with Mr. Haidara. While there he likes to mumble to himself, often talking about how all the vendors at the market stole everything from him and that they refuse to compensate him for their wrongdoing.
I have met Fulani, Bambara, Moors, people from Mauritania, Ghanaians, people from the Ivory Coast, Senegalese, people from Burkina Faso, a Frenchman, a Belgian, people from every region of Mali, a Prime Minister, the U.S. Ambassador to Mali at swear-in, and lots and lots of kids.

Working with the CAP, I’ve met a lot of mayors and even more school directors. Every year the Prime Minister of Mali goes to a different city to make a big show of starting the school year. This year he chose Nioro. Although we didn’t get to have a prolonged conversation, I did get to meet and shake the Prime Minister’s hand, which was pretty cool and he seemed genuinely pleased that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer.

One time, during my first week or two at site, two girls came to my concession and told me that there was someone planning on breaking in to my house to steal my tv. I responded by telling them I didn’t have a tv and why would be want to rob me? They didn’t really have an answer and my Bambara wasn’t good enough so they just repeated that he said he was going to break in. So I asked them what his name was and where he lived. Then I asked if they could take me to his house. Once I got to his concession I walked in and greeted everybody and we just started chatting. We talked for the next 3 hours and then he walked me back to my house and said that we were good friends and had to talk again. For the next week or two I made a point of stopping by his house every once in a while to chat and brought him tea once. My original plan had been to confront him and ask him why he wanted to rob me, but he never brought it up and I realized that there wasn’t really a point so I left it alone. But just by going over and meeting this guy I was able to diffuse a situation that could have led to a lot of frustration, a really scary night, and possible later isolation in the community depending on my reaction and how easy it was for him to break in.

The social culture here essentially forces me to greet many people every day. For the most part it’s integration and just trying to get to know the community, but every once in a while, someone says something or is part of an organization that I will work with in the future, or that I understand is necessary to my safety in a foreign community. When I tell the people here that we don’t greet strangers in the states just in passing, they always comment on how lonely it is. We always seem to be running around in the States so it’s hard, but you never know who you’ll meet just by saying hi.

More homestay pictures

Rocks outside Soundougouba. These in particular I liked becasue they overlooked the whole village, so it was a great place to read or write in my journal. Unfortunately I always forgot to bring my camera.
The mosque at the edge of town.
Wotoro (cart) pulled by a fali (donkey)
Fanta and her daughter Kadri.
Kids in the family.
Part of my room. My water filter on the right, shoes, plastic bowl with food (one of the rare days I was given food in my room, probably because it had rained), the plastic bucket in the corner was where I would put the water to take bucket baths.
Quick run in the morning.
Ryan! My running buddy.
There are 4 volunteers in our stage that graduated from the University of Michigan. All of us are in the education sector. Also, our country director is a wolverine, so of course we had to leave our mark :)
We painted this world map mural in one of the schools in Baguineda Camp. Although it may not last forever and may not seem effective, the people here have very little understanding of the world outside of their village. They believe that there are only 5 continents (Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas). As purely an image, it demonstrates how much more is in the world and that Mali is just a small part of that world. For the most part, Malians know their village and Bamako, but otherwise have no concept of the world.
Another image outside my door.