Life in Dimbatoro

At the base of the mountains that lie behind Dimbatoro is a stream where the villagers grow fruits, vegetables, wash clothes, and get drinking water. This photo was taken next to the stream. The kids love to hang out there, bath, play and pluck mangoes from the trees. Although the mangoes are not yet in season... we still have to wait a few more weeks... these kids used a little teamwork to reach up and grab the bitter green mangoes.

Here is the mosque in front of my house. It is made from mud bricks and covered with more mud. The large triangle in the back is made from mud and it's shape and height are achieved by layering mud and sticks. This building technique is common to the Sahelian Muslims. The small structure in front of the mosque is built low to the ground for two reasons. First, it offers shade during the majority of the day. And two, only men are allowed to hang out there. If an argument turns violent, the men can not stand quickly to fight. If they rise in anger, they will hit their heads and fall back down. Also, there are lots of mini pillars inside for both support and to stop swinging arms. Apparently their were a lot of fights in the past.

This is Boucari and he is the craziest, yet awesome, old man I have ever met. When I first arrived in village, my Fulfulde was definitely not up to par. One time I responded to a greeting with "baasi fuu wala" ...there are no problems... but I put too much emphasis on the "fuu" and he thought that was the funniest thing he's ever heard. To this day, we greets me with the fully emphasized "baasi fuuuuuu wala."

This picture was taken around 4pm in the gardens behind Dimbatoro. There are two old men facing east praying towards Mecca. They are in the shade of a tree, but you can see one kneeling and one standing. There is a good selection of vegetation in this photo. You can see manioc, baobab, mango, a papaya tree, and lemon trees in the background.

Here I am in the garden with my friend Amadu. We have the same name here in Mali, so we refer to each other as "toccara." This means "namesake." He was very excited to pose for the photo while standing next to a mango tree.

This is the main street in Dimbatoro. Once you enter into the village, this is the first thing you will see. Of course, there is the ever present donkey cart in the corner!

This is the original cereal bank in Dimbatoro. The roof caved in, so we're working on building a new grain storage house. If you haven't donated to my project, please go to http://www.peacecorps.gov/ to donate. You can click on "donate now" and then "donate to volunteer projects." My cereal bank project can be found under Mali, D. Munsell, MA, Agriculture, Cereal Bank, etc. As of today, I have received over $1200 of the total $2159 needed. We are well on our way to making this project a reality.

The mango collectors.

The stream where the majority of Dimbatoro's water needs are met. Kinda small, huh?

If you remember from a previous post, I went climbing up in Hombori in March. When I went to Bamako last week I got my hands on some pretty good pics from Jared's camera. The next two pics were taken from Jared's belay spot. He strung up a pendulum top rope and beleyed from a perch half way up the climb. Here I am just hanging in the balance.

I'm going up!

Still going up!