Merry Christmas

The Peace Corps is aging me... I look older than my 23 years. I don't really have a mustache, though... that's just from lack of shaving regularly.

Christmas rocked in Mali. I rode a camel (which is seriously uncomfortable), slept on the fringe of the Sahara Desert (which is seriously cold), and rode fast in an offroad vehicle (which is seriously bumpy). All in all, it rocked.

I celebrated the Tabaski/Li-ah/Eid/Muslim New Year in my village and I ate more meat than I have in one day than in all 5 months here combined. My village slaughtered around 40 animals (which is seriously bloody!) and roasted them all throughout the day. That's a lot of meat for around 200 people. Between all the meat and around 15 rounds of Malian tea, my body was wracked and I didn't sleep that night. The villagers doned their finest white robes and went out into the fields to pray during the morning. Following the prayers, we all went to the local imam's house where he slaughtered lambs and goats, then to the local chief's house where he slaughtered more animals and people tooled around on motorcycles. Then, the slaughtering culminated in the slaughtering of a cow and lots more sheep and goats at my jah tigi's (host family) house.

I am going back to village this afternoon for a few days and will return to Douentza for New Years. After that, it's on to Bamako for In Service Training and hopefully some Americanized Food.

I read a quote from a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia in the 1960s. It was something along the lines of "I respected the Ethiopian customs and culture, but I could never fully adapt. I am just an incurable American!" That's me. As much as I enjoy village life, I can't stay away from Douentza where there are some modern amenities (although I still lack electricity and running water), I'll never wear the Malian clothing again, I cook semi-American food almost daily, I value American contacts (as I don't have to explain myself because the cultural values are innate), etc.

In other news, I have adopted the Peace Corps Stare. Upon first arriving in Mali, I noticed something odd and spacy about the current volunteers. I couldn't quite place it, but something was definitely different with these people who had lived in Mali for an extended amount of time. Speaking with the current PCVs, it was difficult to get their attention at times, as they would be staring off into space lost in some unseen fog. This is the Peace Corps Stare and it comes from spending hours, days, weeks, and months as the solitary American in a village where you are constantly lost in thought. You are able to tune the world out and find some comfort within the deepest recesses of your mind when you can't figure out what is going on around you... this happens way more often than you can imagine. The Peace Corps Stare is pretty serious and it can be difficult to get the attention of someone caught deep in it. It's almost like a zen/trancendental activity where you become completely immersed in your thoughts and leave the physical place you're actually in. I've been caught in this Peace Corps stare and my villagers have to scream "Amadu! Amadu! Ada milla faa hewi!" (Amadu you think too much!) in order to get my attention. It can definitely take some work to get me back into reality from the Peace Corps stare! This is definitely a useful tool I have adopted in order to pass the time at site and on those terribly uncomfortble bus rides.

Have a great New Year! This post is sporadic and doesn't make much sense or explain too much, but that's where I think I'm at right now. Hopefully I can find a faster computer to post more pics, as I have tons of awesome new ones.

Quick Post

I climbed the mountain, and it was awesome. I didn't think I would be in Douentza right now, so I didn't bring my camera. I will get pictures up at some point because there are some wicked good ones. I climbed with Eric from Nebraska and Fikru from Colorado. He camped in a cave, had a bon fire, drank some cheap whiskey out of plastic bags, and listened to country music while warding off imaginary hyenas with hollers, whoops and my big machette! There could have been hyenas... I think our fire, noise and big knife just scared them off. We WERE camping in a cave in the middle of Africa!

I wrote an e-mail to Dylan today and I am gonna post it here because it gets some points across about prospective Peace Corps service and may give some people a better idea of my life here. Hope he doesn't mind me posting it.

"what up?
Good to hear from you. You're seriously applying for the Peace Corps? That's awesome. We're gonna have to have a long talk on the phone sometime so I can explain many things to you. What I can tell you right now though is that the Peace Corps is the most contradictory life experience you'll ever have that combines the lowest of lows with the highest of highs that equal up to one wild emotional rollercoaster. I've only been here 5 months, and I have 21 to go, but I feel like I've lived an entire other life since I arrived. My thoughts, rationals, opinions, values, and everything else have all changed. I hope for the better. I have really learned to slow things down and take life as it comes, as I have FAR too much time to sit, think and refelct upon the past events of my life. It is one hell of an adventure and I am enjoying it thoroughly... minus becoming violently ill and having delirius fevers from time to time (they can be scary sometimes... combo of crazy malaria meds and high fever delirium equal really bad drug trip from a movie!) Combine the lows of the sickness, lonliness, feelings of isolation, etc with the highs of climbing mountains, speaking multiple languages, experiencing new cultures, and generally rocking and rolling and you can almost begin to understand the contradictory emotinoal rollercoaster that is Peace Corps life.
Apply sooner than later so that you can hone in more on what you want. I was too eager to just begin my service and took the first prospect that came. Had I waited, I may have got South America. I have actually forgotten almost all of my spanish now! My head is full of Fulfulde, Bambara, Dogon and French... I hope I don't forget English next! I spoke a little spanish today. but it was harder than pulling teeth. Anyway, as to getting what you want out of the Peace Corps app process, it is wierd how things work out. I am very happy in Africa. I love my village (we grow some tasty mangoes and guavas), have made awesome friends, have seen some terribly amazing sites, and opened up possibilities that I never knew were possible. Africa is poor, but the hope, happiness and resilience that the people harbor here is beyond words. It's just incredible. Strive for what you want, but if you don't get it, just go with what you get. It should work out. The Peace Corps is an amazing way to discover not only the world, but yourself as well. I read yesterday in a Hemingway book that traveling to different, exotic lands will not change you nor erase your problems because you are who you are. This is true to an extent. What you can attain from travel is a broader base to build upon. You can take everything in that you see, hear, touch, and smell and use it create your life the way you want. The Peace Corps is a great way to site back from 2 years, build up your resume, learn an incredible amount, hone in on what you want out of life, mature, and focus yourself.
I wish you luck and please feel free to send me questions any time. I hope this e-mail helps you out. Good luck with finals coming up and tell everyone i said hey when you see them over winter break. Hit up some mountains for me, as I won't see snow for another 2 years! If you need a friend to write a recommendation for you I will gladly write it up over the internet. who knows, maybe having an official PCV speaking on your behalf will give you some weight!
-Dave"

Take care everyone!

Here is the mountain we're climbing next weekend!

This is my buddy Salif playing with Rufus. I think he's like 12 years old. The kid studies the Koran and speaks about 4 different languages... he is very bright and helps out when we us PCVs are in Douentza.

This is me and Rufus hanging out in Douentza... as you can see he really likes to gnaw on my hand.

I start teaching English tomrorrow... I have never taught before, so this should be a trip. Ha teaching English through Fulfulde!

I traveled north into Gao on an overnight bus to celebrate Haloween a few weeks back and it rocked. On Novenber 1st my friends and I hopped in a small pirogue that barely floated (it's many leakes were patched before my eyes) and rode 2 hours down/across the niger against the current through rice paddies until we came to the Rose Dune. The Rose Dune is immense and rises from the banks of the Niger; it is a mini desert in the middle of the Sahelian region. As the sun was setting, we hiked up the dune, and, as temptation proved too strong, we rolled down losing everything in our pockets. It was just like going to Sandy Neck with Grandpa when I was little... only 10 times bigger and in Africa! The first picture is a view from my seat in the Pirogue and you can see a thin pathway leading through a rice field in the middle of the Niger.

This following picture is of the dune from the river. Sadly a picture just does not do justice to the immensity and beauty that the dune projects when you are seeing it for real. To the top, it's about a 20 minute walk from the banks of the river, which by no means is anything extensive, but the view is awesome from there. On one side is the Niger with the shores of Gao lighting upon the opposite bank. The other side stretches endlessly in a mix of Sahelian/Saharan landscape; the sandy ground cover is pocked with low, tough shrubs and small rising dunes.

Here I am looking uber-Peace Corps with my jeans rolled up, scruffy face, shoeless and the ever present Nalgene dangling from my pants.

I finally got a dog and his name is Rufus! Here he is playing with his favorite toy. It's really just a bunch of rags that I tied together, but he loves to rip it apart. Now I just need to teach him how to play fetch. Any advice on how to effectively train a dog? I am desperately trying to westernize him and it is working to an extent, but it's a lot of work. Believe me, I have plenty of time, though! He pretty much eats anything I give him... even beans! I didn't think that one would go over well, but he really enjoys them. He jumped out of the basket I tied to my bike the other day and scraped himself up badly, but he is healing and there doesn't seem to be any lasting damage; he's a dumb dog, but at least he's tough. Jumping from a moving bike at about 25km/h!

Thanksgiving was good and thanks to everyone I was able to speak to on the phone last night. That was truely awesome and it really made my night. I just wish I could have been there with all of you! Everyone sounds like they are doing really well staying healthy and that is all I can really hope for. I actually had an America-ish meal of duck, pork, cranberry sauce, pasta salad and sangria and it rocked so much. I am still full almost 24 hours later. My body was definitely not used to the richness of the food, but it was so worth it!

I'll hopefully be able to update this blog around Christmas if not sooner. I am going on a hiking trip next to Douentza in about 2 weeks and will get some really good photos. I have plans to go rock climbing in Hombori at some point in the near future. Christmas will most likely be spent in Dogon country, which definitely entails hiking. The next month should be filled with these types of fun activities. And, this week I am going to see about teaching english in the village next to mine. Finally.... real work to do woohoo!

So you wanna know about my work...

Great news! I finally know what I am supposed to be doing here, and it only took three months! This week I had a tutor from Bamako come up to my site and stay with me. I had around 30 intensive hours of Fulfulde training and I am now able to speak about my work, conjugate the differenet verb forms with a lot more fluidity (I still speak Fulfulde like a Dogon because of my village), and have really increased my vocab knowledge. My tutor, Dauo, acted as a translator one night in a conversation between me and my homologue. Basically, my village has three main goals that they would like to accomplish. First off, the village received funding a few years ago for a seed and cereal bank. A small stoarage house has built and some seeds and cereals were bought. The village was able to increase profit by loaning seeds at first. People were able to pay back the seed loans with interest and the bank was running successfully. One day, the accountant running the books just up and left with all of the moneym leaving the villagers back at square one. My first job will be to find more funding to build a new and improved storage house and large stock. In January I will return to Bamako for inservice training and learn all about the Peace Corps Partnership Program and how to write grants/proposals and receive funding. This goal seems easily attainable and I am really excited to get it going in the coming months.
The second goal or the village is to improve the productivity of the community garden. Right now (mini hot season) the village is harvesting the millet that was grown in the rainy season, which is their main food staple. This will be accomplished within the next month. The next step is to begin working in the garden during the cold season. The villagers grow tomatoes, onions, garlic, bananas, mangos, papayas, lettuce, lemons, and other various fruits/veggies. Basically, they want me to introduce ways to increase crop yield so that they can eat more food that contains the necessary vitamins to maintain good health and to increase profit when they sell the goods in market. For the next three months I will be doing "farmers field school" experiments in order to see what works best. This means that I will take a plot of land in the garden, divide it into sections and change one variable (while the rest remain constant) in order to see what works best to increase crop yield/health. I will be experiementing with different natural fungicides, insecticides, and fertilizers. This should be some really exciting work that produces results that I can see and share with the villagers.
The third goal is more complicated, but it includes water conservation techniques during and after the rainy season because they receive so little rain this far north and it always comes and goes at different times. I am not too sure as to what I can do for this, but I will be able to look into digging wells, building irrigation canals, slowing soil erosion, and working on compost. This job should be a trip, but I will go into it head first.
All in all, I'm pumped to finally know what my village wants to do and it is really driving me to learn Fulfulde faster so I can work more effectively.

I might get a dog today! I am just waiting for these little kids to bring it over to the house I am staying in. I told them I want a black male puppy. The black dogs here always look so much healthier and cleaner, and I don't want a femals dog because I don't want to deal with 10 puppies in the future. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Anyway, it's about that time for my 25km bike ride home woohoo! Caggal Jooni.

Updates from the north!

I'n here!

PETA members look out, I'm now a proffesional turtle surfer! This tortoise lives at the training center and only has one eye. He spends his day running into people sitting on chairs to knowck them over, busting through screen doors to scare the girls and chasing everyone around... he can really move! And, he loves to mess with people.

So, on the way up to site 2 weeks ago we got into a pretty bad bus accident. After leaving Bamako early in the morning, the bus was heading north at the usual breakneck, horn blasting speed. About 30 minutes into the trip I was dozing in my seat dreading the 15 hour sweat box ride when the driving started honking incessentaly. Normally the bus driver hnoks to move cattle, goats, birds, pedestrians, other cars, small children, etc. This time he was really laying it on. The driver then slammed on his brakesm careened left and I was shaken from my nap rather violently. I pulled the curtain from the window in time to see a small white truck bounce off the front of our bus, skid off the road, and come to a grinding halt. There were a few men in the back of the truck and one was flung out onto the ground... luckily he was ok except for some pretty nasty cuts on his back and elbows. The front of the truck was crumpled in like tinfoil bu the driver was able to walk away from the accident. On the other side of the bus a man was pushing his moto, which you can see in the pic above. When he was the bus coming straight at him, he ditched the moto, which was dragged under the bus like a vacuum, and ran off the road as we barely missed him! The bus went off the road, blasted through a stand full of gasolinem broke through an open sewer covered by increments of concrete and missed plunging into a drainage ditch by a mere 8 inches. Looking at the scene of the accident, I couldn't believe that we hadn't flipped. Being on the bus, it felt like it was going over, but the driver handled the situation very well.

This is my house at site and the guys hanging out are some local villagers. As you can seem it's not much more than a pile of rocks glued together with mud, but nonthe less, it is the nicest house in the village because it is brand new and has a door and windows that close AND lock! Imagine that!

Hey Dad I got some of your Munsell Appraisal Service hats out to my Malian counterparts. The man on the rightm Ousman Kassambaram is my homologue and I will be working with him for the next two years. The guy on the left is Tijani Ongoiba and is kinda like the village go-to guy. He can fix everything.

This is me and my friend Ben right before going to swear-in dressed in our finest Malian outfits... kinda like a pajama party!

I'm in the club!

Alright, i'm now an official Peace Corps Volunteer! after 2 months of intensive training at homesite and Tubani So, we all (76 people, I think) swore in at the American Embassy in Bamako. The cermeony was long and conducted in French, Bambara, Sonrai, Fulfulde, Tamasheq, and Donnaso.... so basically I didn't understand a word of it! There were brief explanations in Englsih, but they were few and far between... even people that I didn't think spoke French went up to the podium and addressed the crowd in French.

After the cermemony we were invited back to the American residence where the Ambassador and his family live. There was a ton of amazing food which included kabobs, rice, beans, salad and bread. After that we went back to Tubani So and had a cookout (sort of...) with hanburgers, Ruffles, Doritos and French Fries... I ate more yesterday than I have in the whole 2 months I have been here so far. Hopefully I put on some of the 12 pounds I've llost already.

Last night there was a party for us at a club called The Pirates Club... cheesy pirate jokes were told all night... it was awesome. Later we stayed at a hotel and went swimming almost until the sun came up. I was able to sleep in a room with air conditioning, but now my lungs are kinda messed up... go figure. A lot of people got a cold from just sleeping in such nice conditions.

Today I had some pizza and am just hanging out at the Buearu Office and may go to a party for Malian Independence Day (which is today) hosted at the American Club by the local marines.

I leave for the Mopti region on Sunday and will be installed at my site on the 26th. Basically, my birthday is going to be a very different sort of birthday this year (for thos of you that don't know, I'll be 23 on Sept. 27). Malians don't generally celebrate birthdays, rather they only know the year they were born on, but not the day... and thos are the more educated Malians that tend to life in more urban settings.

Birthday wishes aside, I'm really pumped to get up to site and start doing my community based assessement to determine which projects are actually feasible. It is oging to be ridiculous only communicating in Fulfulde because my level is barely communicable. I did pass the test easily and am able to communicate basic ideas, but living in a community of Peuhls and Dogons is gonna be a trip for sure! I will be able to see some Americans at least once a week or every other week when I have to go into a large market area to buy food supplies.. I definitely can't live in "to" alone. I bought a gas tank and 3-burner stove, and the Peace Corps gave me a cookbook, so we'll see what I can cook up!

That's about all for now. Next time I update this I'll have a pretty good idea of what life in my village of roughly 100 people is like and I'm sure I'll have many new culture shock stories.

Oh yea, I got walked in on again by the little 2 year old girl when I was taking my bucket bath. She stood there staring at me until I finally doused her with a cup of hot water (malian feedback???) Hahaha that got her out of the nyeggan real fast . Don't worry, that water wasn't that hot.... it's just i was naked and she wouldn't stop staring at me. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.