written October 28, 2010
So market day yesterday was alright. I didn't buy any boiled peanuts or doughnuts, but I did get rice which was great! So anyway here are a bunch of random small stories from yesterday:
1- One of my homologue's favorite things to do is point out how he is "fais Americaine"ing which means that he is doing something that he considers American. For example he will be eating lunch, and instead of eating with his hand out of a bowl on the ground, he will set the bowl on a small table and still use his hand and then call my name and say "Gnire (my name)! Je fais Americaine maintenant!" or he will eat with a spoon and say the same. It's really quite funny, but also kind of annoying because he is constantly pointing it out.
2- I was sitting in the Premiere Adjoint's office with the Mayor and my homologue, and we were talking about Obama and Blacks and Whites in the US. The Mayor asked me if I was on the side of the Blacks or if I was on the side of the Whites (whatever that means?). I told him I was in the middle because I'm mixed and my mom is white and my dad is black so I don't want to pick a side. The Mayor was like "No, no, you should be on the side of the Blacks. You should side with your dad!" and I was like "no, what about my mom?" He then said "Don't worry your dad will be there, and if you go your mom will follow you to the side of the Blacks because your dad is there." It was a weird conversation.
3- I saw my first University of Florida shirt yesterday! Random used clothes get shipped to Mali from all over, so I expected to see a UF shirt sooner or later. Surprisingly enough I finally saw one at my Host Dad's house! A girl who is living there to attend school in my village was wearing it. I tried to explain to everyone that her shirt was from my University and how exciting that was, but they didn't get it. T-shirts and what are on them don't matter to Malians.
4- I saw a pair of shorts at the market today with a "Abfrorombe and Fitch" label on it.
5- The Mayor thought that the capitol of Jamaica was Miami.
6- Another thing that my homologue tries to do to "fais Americaine" is have people pay 50 francs for dropping trash on the ground at his house instead of taking it to the trash pile. He wants to buy a trash can for his house, but until he gets one people will just have to walk to the trash pile.
7- The priest I mention a few blog posts ago, the only Malian I've ever considered (from now on I will refer to him as Hot Priest), came by for a visit yesterday. I had just gotten home after spending the entire day with my homologue and I really just wanted to relax by myself. I already found Hot Priest kind of annoying because every time he has come over in the past he has insisted on a full tea session that takes about 2 hours and has asked me a lot of questions about how I worship and religion which I don't like to talk about. So anyway I heard a motorcycle pull up so I looked out my window and immediately recognized Hot Priest's bike jacket. I immediately ducked down and attempted to hide, I was in no mood to entertain anyone, let alone annoying Hot Priest. Unfortunately for me my door was open (this is a sign for everyone that says 'hey! Gnire's home!'), so he knew I was in there. He came to chat with my homologue so he spent about 20 minutes looking for him which led me to believe that I was in the clear... That was until he had one of the boys who lives with us call out my name at my door about 6 times. After the 6th time I felt kind of bad for making him yell out my name so many times so I finally just went to the door and pretended that I had been sleeping. Hot Priest believed me, but then kept asking me how it was possible that I was able to sleep through the noise of his motorcycle. I told him I guessed I was a really deep sleeper. (Am I going to go to Hell for lying to a Priest??) Anyway just like all the other visits before, Hot Priest insisted that we have tea. He also asked me to bring out my computer because he had brought his USB and wanted to get some music from me. I found this to be very annoying because I don't like flaunting my wealth in village thus I like to keep things like my computer and ipod hidden. I brought it out anyway and transfered 23 songs to his USB, but not before being lectured by Hot Priest about how I need to clean my computer because dust is very bad for it. He also knows very little about computers and doesn't know English, but yet still tried to tell me how to put music on his USB and how to use iTunes, a program I'm sure he's never used before in his life. Hot Priest is sooooo annoying! Hopefully next time I am more successful in my attempt at hiding.
written October 29, 2010
8- A few days ago I ruined my favorite pair of gold head phones by getting them caught in the wheel of my bicycle. Good came out of this though because I discovered that the other pair of headphones I brought with me has what is almost like surround sound! So for the past few nights I have been turning my music up, closing my eyes and pretending I'm at a club. I have my own private dance party. It's great. And what makes it even more great is the fact that I wear a head lamp and a tafe (pronounced taff-ay, basically and ankle length wrap skirt). I'm very hip.
9- There was a GIANT moth on my screen door last night and it was impeding my ability to close my metal door so that i could go to bed. I spent about 20 minutes trying to get it off by poking it with a stick, throwing water on it, and even trying to squirt it with bleach. I eventually gave up and called out to my homologue to get him to help me. He came over and couldn't stop laughing and even called over his wife and friend to see that I was scared of a moth. He told me through laughs "You know it won't bite you," and also pointed out all the water on the ground to everyone. it was pretty embarrassing, but also scary as hell!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Oatmeal
written October 26, 2010
I've just stuffed my face with a BIG ole bowl of oatmeal (and burned my tongue and the roof of my mouth while doing it). It was great! I've also had 8 Pixy Stix, a handful of Nerds and one incredibley melted Reese's. I taste America in my mouth, and it's great! I know for sure that the thing I miss the most (besides friends and family of course) is American Food. You all don't know how lucky you are to just be able to hop in a car and have your choice of making a delicous meal with yummy groceries, or just pulling through some drive-thru. You have no idea what I'd give to be able to have a burrito from Taco Bell right now.
Oh so my Dad's birthday was yesterday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!), and I celebrated by eating Nerds, lots and lots of Nerds. I also spent the entire day at the Mayor's office because they were having a meeting about this year's budget. Now why was I there you may ask? and the answer is that I have no clue. My homologue carts me along to every single meeting at the Mayor's office, and every single meeting is in Senufo, so basically that means I sit for hours in silence not knowing what is going on. I'm an Education volunteer, so it made sense when he brought me to the meeting about the running of the schools and all of the issues they were having, but there is no reason why I need to be at meetings like ones about the Mayor's budget. The meeting yesterday was more than 5 hours long!! Normally I just sit in the meetings and listen intently even though I don't understand anything just to be polite, but yesterday I gave up on politeness and pulled out my book. The funny thing is that I wasn't even the only bored one in the room! The Premiere Adjoint (2nd in charge under the Mayor) had his head on the table, and a representative from the village over was snoring!! There is only one thing that I like about attending meetings at the Mayor's office, and that is that I get to eat lunch with them, which means I get to eat rice and not Toh!!!!!!! When I eat with my host family I only get rice once or twice a week because my host dad can't afford to feed his family rice everyday, instead we have Toh or Couscous, both of which I find disgusting.
Anyway not much is going on in village right now except that both the Primary and Secondary schools got Stagiers (student teachers), so now we have enough teachers so that no classroom should be unattended, or at least that's what I would think, but is not actually the case. Yesterday, for example, I went by the Secondary school to meet the stagiers and noticed that 2 of the 3 classrooms were left unattended; only the 9th graders were being taught while the 7th and 8th graders were left alone and were fooling around. This is unbelieveable to me because The secondary school has 3 permanent teachers, 2 stagiers and the Director. Why is it that only one of them was teaching? This is something that I definitely want to change about my village. I want to point out to the teachers that their job is to teach, so during the hours of 7:45- noon and then 3-5 Monday through Friday they should be in the classroom, and that whatever else they have to do can be done during the very long lunch break, afterschool, or on the weekend!
Allow me to end this entry with something I'm very excited about: tomorrow is RICE DAY!!! at my host family's. It is also my village's market day which I love because it means I can by the Malian version of a doughnuts and boiled peanuts! yummm!
I've just stuffed my face with a BIG ole bowl of oatmeal (and burned my tongue and the roof of my mouth while doing it). It was great! I've also had 8 Pixy Stix, a handful of Nerds and one incredibley melted Reese's. I taste America in my mouth, and it's great! I know for sure that the thing I miss the most (besides friends and family of course) is American Food. You all don't know how lucky you are to just be able to hop in a car and have your choice of making a delicous meal with yummy groceries, or just pulling through some drive-thru. You have no idea what I'd give to be able to have a burrito from Taco Bell right now.
Oh so my Dad's birthday was yesterday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!), and I celebrated by eating Nerds, lots and lots of Nerds. I also spent the entire day at the Mayor's office because they were having a meeting about this year's budget. Now why was I there you may ask? and the answer is that I have no clue. My homologue carts me along to every single meeting at the Mayor's office, and every single meeting is in Senufo, so basically that means I sit for hours in silence not knowing what is going on. I'm an Education volunteer, so it made sense when he brought me to the meeting about the running of the schools and all of the issues they were having, but there is no reason why I need to be at meetings like ones about the Mayor's budget. The meeting yesterday was more than 5 hours long!! Normally I just sit in the meetings and listen intently even though I don't understand anything just to be polite, but yesterday I gave up on politeness and pulled out my book. The funny thing is that I wasn't even the only bored one in the room! The Premiere Adjoint (2nd in charge under the Mayor) had his head on the table, and a representative from the village over was snoring!! There is only one thing that I like about attending meetings at the Mayor's office, and that is that I get to eat lunch with them, which means I get to eat rice and not Toh!!!!!!! When I eat with my host family I only get rice once or twice a week because my host dad can't afford to feed his family rice everyday, instead we have Toh or Couscous, both of which I find disgusting.
Anyway not much is going on in village right now except that both the Primary and Secondary schools got Stagiers (student teachers), so now we have enough teachers so that no classroom should be unattended, or at least that's what I would think, but is not actually the case. Yesterday, for example, I went by the Secondary school to meet the stagiers and noticed that 2 of the 3 classrooms were left unattended; only the 9th graders were being taught while the 7th and 8th graders were left alone and were fooling around. This is unbelieveable to me because The secondary school has 3 permanent teachers, 2 stagiers and the Director. Why is it that only one of them was teaching? This is something that I definitely want to change about my village. I want to point out to the teachers that their job is to teach, so during the hours of 7:45- noon and then 3-5 Monday through Friday they should be in the classroom, and that whatever else they have to do can be done during the very long lunch break, afterschool, or on the weekend!
Allow me to end this entry with something I'm very excited about: tomorrow is RICE DAY!!! at my host family's. It is also my village's market day which I love because it means I can by the Malian version of a doughnuts and boiled peanuts! yummm!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
school day
written 10-11-2010
Today I single-handedly silenced a crammed room full of 100 plus 7 graders... for like a minute, then they went back to screaming and laughing because there was no teacher there to keep them in check. So today was my first day going to my village's secondary school (grades 7,8 and 9). It is a 3 roomed school house packed with kids and only 2 teachers and a principal (my host dad). There is an English teacher, a French Teacher, and then the Principal teaches Math, Physics and Chemistry. The French teacher also teaches History and Geography, and I'm not sure if the English teacher does anything else. I knew the Malian education system was bad, but today was my first real-life experience of it. It was pretty awful and I'm truly greatful I did my schooling in the US. First of all, there are close to 130 students jammed into a room for probably 50 students, and just one teacher. The students don't have textbooks and solely have to rely on what the teacher writes on the board, so the majority of class is spent copying down the lesson and very little teaching or learning for that matter goes on. I sat through a 9th grade math class where we got through 3 simple algebra problems! 3! I couldn't believe it! Also these 3 problems were homework problems from last Friday (today is Monday), so this should have been review. The students barely knew how to do the problems, and my host dad pretty much spent the whole class period yelling no at them. I also got to sit in on an 8th grade Englsih lesson. That was painful. The entire class period was spent on a 6 sentence dialogue (class is a little over an hour in length). The teacher just kept making them repeat the sentences of a dialogue that they had written in their notebooks from Friday. The book that they use for English is truely awful because this dialogue went something like this (I'm going from memory, so I think I've forgotten a word or two, but this is the majority of it):
Driver: Don't push me!
Nurse: Oh yes, I remember him. The big one with the cut on his leg. I gave him an inoculation.
Other person: What do you want?
Namundo: Can we sleep here please?
I heard the class repeat that about 30 times. It doesn't even make sense!! The dialogue isn't at all cohesive. At first I thought maybe the teacher had messed it up and left some sentences out, but nope, I saw with my own eyes that it came straight out of the book. The English teacher barely knows any English so he had no clue how terrible this dialogue was. I tried to explain how terrible it was to him, but then he got all defensive so I pretty much just backed down because it is his class afterall, and not mine. I really hope I will be able to help teach English here because they definitely need my help here, although I'm not sure I will be able to because the Peace Corps Education program in Mali isn't focused on teaching, but on basic literacy and things like girl empowerment and youth development. Another issue that I noticed today, which also has to do with the first sentence of this blog entry, is that the teachers here just walk off and leave a class of more than 100 kids to do whatever they want. After the lunch break, my host dad went off somewhere on his moto, probably to another village or something on business, but since there's only him and 2 other teachers, it meant that the 7th graders were left by themselves for 2 hours. They weren't even allowed to go home! They just sat there making sooooo much noise. That's why I tried to single-handedly silence them because I was trying to listen in on the 8th graders English lesson, but I could barely hear over all the 7th graders in the room over. It really made me sad that the students' time was wasted like that. I tried to explain to my homologue that it would even be better if they just went home, because honestly they could actually be doing something productive there. I also told him that if I were my host dad and I knew I wasn't going to be able to teach the class, then I wpuld at least pick the best student to just write that day's lesson up on the board for the rest of the students to copy. Especially since that's what he would've done anyway, just have the students copy the lesson from the board. Gosh this village has some serious Education issues, and I've only just seen the secondary school... there's still the primary school and the kindergarten to visit.
Today I single-handedly silenced a crammed room full of 100 plus 7 graders... for like a minute, then they went back to screaming and laughing because there was no teacher there to keep them in check. So today was my first day going to my village's secondary school (grades 7,8 and 9). It is a 3 roomed school house packed with kids and only 2 teachers and a principal (my host dad). There is an English teacher, a French Teacher, and then the Principal teaches Math, Physics and Chemistry. The French teacher also teaches History and Geography, and I'm not sure if the English teacher does anything else. I knew the Malian education system was bad, but today was my first real-life experience of it. It was pretty awful and I'm truly greatful I did my schooling in the US. First of all, there are close to 130 students jammed into a room for probably 50 students, and just one teacher. The students don't have textbooks and solely have to rely on what the teacher writes on the board, so the majority of class is spent copying down the lesson and very little teaching or learning for that matter goes on. I sat through a 9th grade math class where we got through 3 simple algebra problems! 3! I couldn't believe it! Also these 3 problems were homework problems from last Friday (today is Monday), so this should have been review. The students barely knew how to do the problems, and my host dad pretty much spent the whole class period yelling no at them. I also got to sit in on an 8th grade Englsih lesson. That was painful. The entire class period was spent on a 6 sentence dialogue (class is a little over an hour in length). The teacher just kept making them repeat the sentences of a dialogue that they had written in their notebooks from Friday. The book that they use for English is truely awful because this dialogue went something like this (I'm going from memory, so I think I've forgotten a word or two, but this is the majority of it):
Driver: Don't push me!
Nurse: Oh yes, I remember him. The big one with the cut on his leg. I gave him an inoculation.
Other person: What do you want?
Namundo: Can we sleep here please?
I heard the class repeat that about 30 times. It doesn't even make sense!! The dialogue isn't at all cohesive. At first I thought maybe the teacher had messed it up and left some sentences out, but nope, I saw with my own eyes that it came straight out of the book. The English teacher barely knows any English so he had no clue how terrible this dialogue was. I tried to explain how terrible it was to him, but then he got all defensive so I pretty much just backed down because it is his class afterall, and not mine. I really hope I will be able to help teach English here because they definitely need my help here, although I'm not sure I will be able to because the Peace Corps Education program in Mali isn't focused on teaching, but on basic literacy and things like girl empowerment and youth development. Another issue that I noticed today, which also has to do with the first sentence of this blog entry, is that the teachers here just walk off and leave a class of more than 100 kids to do whatever they want. After the lunch break, my host dad went off somewhere on his moto, probably to another village or something on business, but since there's only him and 2 other teachers, it meant that the 7th graders were left by themselves for 2 hours. They weren't even allowed to go home! They just sat there making sooooo much noise. That's why I tried to single-handedly silence them because I was trying to listen in on the 8th graders English lesson, but I could barely hear over all the 7th graders in the room over. It really made me sad that the students' time was wasted like that. I tried to explain to my homologue that it would even be better if they just went home, because honestly they could actually be doing something productive there. I also told him that if I were my host dad and I knew I wasn't going to be able to teach the class, then I wpuld at least pick the best student to just write that day's lesson up on the board for the rest of the students to copy. Especially since that's what he would've done anyway, just have the students copy the lesson from the board. Gosh this village has some serious Education issues, and I've only just seen the secondary school... there's still the primary school and the kindergarten to visit.
awkward
written Oct. 9, 2010
So I think I have some unconcious interest in putting myself in awkward situations. Just about every week 1 or 2 Catholic Priests come to visit my house to chat with my homologue (he's one of the few Christians in my village). Yesterday it was just the young, newly ordained priest who came by (funny enough, this priest is the only Malian that I have even remotely been attracted to... isn't that irony?). Everytime he comes by he asks me about my computer and whether or not it needs to be charged because when I first got to village I went to the Catholic Missionary to ask if I could use their electricity (solar panel powered) to charge my computer, and that was when I originally met him. Anyway from talking about my computer we got to talking about all of the music I have on it, and from there we started talking about the music he likes. He told me that he really liked 50 Cent! I literally laughed out loud. Can you imagine a Catholic Priest in a conservative country like Mali liking 50 Cent?? A man who has a Parental Advisory sticker on every single one of his albums? This was hilarious to me, so I asked him if he even understood what 50 was rapping about, and of course he said no. So this is where this unconcious interest comes in because I decided to take it upon myself to describe why he, a Catholic Priest, shouldn't be interested in rap like 50's (or Akon for that matter because he is also a big fan of his too). I told him that 50 uses really dirty words, disgusting words, and he didn't get what I meant and kept asking me "like what?" Well I wasn't about to curse in front of a Priest so I just told him I didn't know the words in French. I then tried to explain that most of 50's songs were about drugs and sex. That was pretty difficult. I told him that a lot of songs have to do with the rapport between a man and a woman in the bedroom (Why do I always seem to breech the topic of sex with Malians and then not know how to be specific about it?). Anyway what I did say actually worked because he said "Ohhhh! His songs are of a pornographic nature?" and to that I was like "Yes!!" and then changed the topic immediately. I think I should just embrace my interest in awkwardness.
So I think I have some unconcious interest in putting myself in awkward situations. Just about every week 1 or 2 Catholic Priests come to visit my house to chat with my homologue (he's one of the few Christians in my village). Yesterday it was just the young, newly ordained priest who came by (funny enough, this priest is the only Malian that I have even remotely been attracted to... isn't that irony?). Everytime he comes by he asks me about my computer and whether or not it needs to be charged because when I first got to village I went to the Catholic Missionary to ask if I could use their electricity (solar panel powered) to charge my computer, and that was when I originally met him. Anyway from talking about my computer we got to talking about all of the music I have on it, and from there we started talking about the music he likes. He told me that he really liked 50 Cent! I literally laughed out loud. Can you imagine a Catholic Priest in a conservative country like Mali liking 50 Cent?? A man who has a Parental Advisory sticker on every single one of his albums? This was hilarious to me, so I asked him if he even understood what 50 was rapping about, and of course he said no. So this is where this unconcious interest comes in because I decided to take it upon myself to describe why he, a Catholic Priest, shouldn't be interested in rap like 50's (or Akon for that matter because he is also a big fan of his too). I told him that 50 uses really dirty words, disgusting words, and he didn't get what I meant and kept asking me "like what?" Well I wasn't about to curse in front of a Priest so I just told him I didn't know the words in French. I then tried to explain that most of 50's songs were about drugs and sex. That was pretty difficult. I told him that a lot of songs have to do with the rapport between a man and a woman in the bedroom (Why do I always seem to breech the topic of sex with Malians and then not know how to be specific about it?). Anyway what I did say actually worked because he said "Ohhhh! His songs are of a pornographic nature?" and to that I was like "Yes!!" and then changed the topic immediately. I think I should just embrace my interest in awkwardness.
Amebas
written Oct. 8, 2010
So school has started up again here, and I feel like I should be walking to class with the teens and little kids of my village, seeing as I feel like a little kid myself. I don't see this as a bad thing, just as something very weird. I was just starting to feel like a grown up as I was finishing up at UF, but now I feel like I have been thrown back into highschool. In Mali I have very little Independence. This is for a good reason because I am a foreigner here, and it would be very hard to make it on my own, but still. I am constantly under the watch of some Malian which at times is very annoying to me because I just came from living on my own for thr past four years. I live with my homologue right now, and this just makes me feel even more like a kid because he's basically a father figure, and I have to live with him, so esentially I've moved back in with my father. He very rarely lets me go places by myself, and when I am away from him for a day or more, he calls me to see how I am doing. I think that this is all very nice and caring of him, but again coming from being on my own for four years, I find it to be a tad bit annoying. Oh well, I guess I'm either going to have to get use to it, or set my boundaries as an adult. I'm not sure which one I wanna do yet, because sometimes being babied and having everything done for you is great!
On a more disgusting note, I have Amebas! Yayyy! Except not. You may not know what Amebas are so lemme just throw you a little blurb on how amebas are transmitted from the amazing book Where There is No Doctor: "The stools of infected people contain millions of these tiny parasites. Because of poor sanitation, they get into the source of drinking water or into food, and other people become infected." So yea, I'm one of those "other people." Oh and to avoid disgusting myself even further, I'm just going to refrain from describing the symptoms of having Amebas, you can look that up on your own. This is all very horrifying to me, but I guess that's just what happens when very few people wash their hands with soap in the country that I'm doing my Peace Corps service in :/. Oh and I now have to take 8 pills everyday for the next week! How exciting! -__-
So school has started up again here, and I feel like I should be walking to class with the teens and little kids of my village, seeing as I feel like a little kid myself. I don't see this as a bad thing, just as something very weird. I was just starting to feel like a grown up as I was finishing up at UF, but now I feel like I have been thrown back into highschool. In Mali I have very little Independence. This is for a good reason because I am a foreigner here, and it would be very hard to make it on my own, but still. I am constantly under the watch of some Malian which at times is very annoying to me because I just came from living on my own for thr past four years. I live with my homologue right now, and this just makes me feel even more like a kid because he's basically a father figure, and I have to live with him, so esentially I've moved back in with my father. He very rarely lets me go places by myself, and when I am away from him for a day or more, he calls me to see how I am doing. I think that this is all very nice and caring of him, but again coming from being on my own for four years, I find it to be a tad bit annoying. Oh well, I guess I'm either going to have to get use to it, or set my boundaries as an adult. I'm not sure which one I wanna do yet, because sometimes being babied and having everything done for you is great!
On a more disgusting note, I have Amebas! Yayyy! Except not. You may not know what Amebas are so lemme just throw you a little blurb on how amebas are transmitted from the amazing book Where There is No Doctor: "The stools of infected people contain millions of these tiny parasites. Because of poor sanitation, they get into the source of drinking water or into food, and other people become infected." So yea, I'm one of those "other people." Oh and to avoid disgusting myself even further, I'm just going to refrain from describing the symptoms of having Amebas, you can look that up on your own. This is all very horrifying to me, but I guess that's just what happens when very few people wash their hands with soap in the country that I'm doing my Peace Corps service in :/. Oh and I now have to take 8 pills everyday for the next week! How exciting! -__-
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Weird.
written Sept. 30, 2010
So today was a very weird day, a good day, but very weird. I consider all days that I make my way around the village and talk to people besides my homologue good days, and today I did just that. The first strange thing to happen to me was when I was at my host family's house for lunch. One of my host mom's friends was over and after lunch we were basically just hanging out. I'm only ever able to talk a little bit with them because my Bambara isn't that good, and neither is theirs since they speak Senufo.So anyway, I don't know how we go on the subject, but my host mom's friend, a young woman with a couple of kids (she's also the wife of the Secondary school's english teacher) told me that if she washed herself many many times it be possible to become my skin tone. I laughed out loud at this because I wasn't sure if she was joking or not. I had no idea how to respond to that in Bambara so I just said 'c'est pas possible!' (It's not possible). She just started to laugh too, and I said that her skin tone is good, and she pointed to my black shirt and said that my shirt and her skin were the same color. I told her over and over through laughs that it wasn't true, that both of our skin tones were good. A little later she asked me if when I go back to America would it be possible to take her baby girl with me hidden in my backpack, and once we get to America I could wash her a lot with American soap and then she will become the same skin tone as me. Again I burst out in laughter and said it wasn't possible. I tried to explain to them that their skin tone was good, and that there are lots of Americans with the same skin tone, my dad included. They didn't believe that at all, so tomorrow I'm bringing my photo album with me to prove that my dad has dark skin like them.
Today I also, without realizing, showed an inappropriate picture of my mom to my homologue's family and my Bambara teacher. This inappropriate picture was a picture of me with my mom and brother taken after church on mother's day. What it depicted was, gasp!, my mom in a skirt that didn't go past her knees! I have no idea what they said in response to seeing that because they were chattering at such an insane speed and also in Senufo, but I could clearly detect the shock in their voices. Once I knew what they were going on about I tried to explain to them that that was perfectly okay in America, and that women there often wear much shorter skirts than the one my mom had on. They went on to explain to me that a married woman would never wear that because her husband wouldn't allow it. Anyway, sorry mom, but a few people in my village now think you're a floozy :/.
The other weird thing to happen today was that these two teenage boys came to my house and told my homologue that they wanted to chat with me. I had my bucket and shower stuff in my hands when I walked past them and my homologue told me they wanted to chat. Hoping that it was going to be a quick question, I set my shower stuff down and sat in a chair in front of them. The first thing the boy asked me was if I was a Madame or a Madamoiselle. i always laugh at this question, I'm not sure why, but I answered Madameoiselle. Then he was like 'okay Madameoiselle we just came here to say good evening' (this was all in French btw), then he proceeded to ask me if I knew what AIDS was. I said of course and he went on to explain that he didn't believe it was a real thing, instead he felt it was a project brought to Africa by white people. I sat there in shock because I didn't know how to respond to that. The boy and my homologue took this to mean that I didn't understand what he was saying, so he asked me straight if I thought AIDS existed. I told them that I did understand and that of course it exists. He then asked me where it exists, and I said it exists in every continent, even the United States. He then asked me if I knew where AIDS began. I told him that I didn't and he said well if you don't know where it came from then how do you know it exists? Unfortunately my French is not nearly good enough to be able to discuss this topic adequately, but I did my best. I went on to ask him if he thought Yellow Fever was real, and he said yes, and then I asked him where Yellow Fever started, and of course he said he didn't know, and to that I said 'see it's the same thing. I don't know where AIDS came from and you don't know where Yellow Fever came from but they are both real.' I also told him that I knew of people with AIDS. I'm not sure I was able to convince him that AIDS is in fact real and not just a farce created by white people, but I hope I was able to make somewhat of a dent. I found the whole situation to be awkward because I don't feel as if I am all that knowledgeable on the topic of AIDS, and I never like talking about things I don't know all that much about. However I did ask them if they knew how AIDS was transmitted, and he said that it came from someone with AIDS getting cut and then the blood of that person getting on you. I tried to explain to him in my poor French that it can be transmitted through blood but not from something like coughing on someone. I also tried to say that it is transmitted sexually, but I completely forgot the word for sex in French, so I said it came from the thing a man and a woman do together in their bedroom. That was beyond awkward, and I only dug further into the awkwardness by trying to tell them about condoms, but again not knowing the word in French for that. For condoms I tried to use hand signals and said it was the thing in a box that a man uses. Thankfully the sun was going down, so I decided to use that as an excuse to leave that awkward situation and go take my bucket bath. I think they were all just as uncomfortable as I was so I think they were just as glad for me to leave as I was.
So today was a very weird day, a good day, but very weird. I consider all days that I make my way around the village and talk to people besides my homologue good days, and today I did just that. The first strange thing to happen to me was when I was at my host family's house for lunch. One of my host mom's friends was over and after lunch we were basically just hanging out. I'm only ever able to talk a little bit with them because my Bambara isn't that good, and neither is theirs since they speak Senufo.So anyway, I don't know how we go on the subject, but my host mom's friend, a young woman with a couple of kids (she's also the wife of the Secondary school's english teacher) told me that if she washed herself many many times it be possible to become my skin tone. I laughed out loud at this because I wasn't sure if she was joking or not. I had no idea how to respond to that in Bambara so I just said 'c'est pas possible!' (It's not possible). She just started to laugh too, and I said that her skin tone is good, and she pointed to my black shirt and said that my shirt and her skin were the same color. I told her over and over through laughs that it wasn't true, that both of our skin tones were good. A little later she asked me if when I go back to America would it be possible to take her baby girl with me hidden in my backpack, and once we get to America I could wash her a lot with American soap and then she will become the same skin tone as me. Again I burst out in laughter and said it wasn't possible. I tried to explain to them that their skin tone was good, and that there are lots of Americans with the same skin tone, my dad included. They didn't believe that at all, so tomorrow I'm bringing my photo album with me to prove that my dad has dark skin like them.
Today I also, without realizing, showed an inappropriate picture of my mom to my homologue's family and my Bambara teacher. This inappropriate picture was a picture of me with my mom and brother taken after church on mother's day. What it depicted was, gasp!, my mom in a skirt that didn't go past her knees! I have no idea what they said in response to seeing that because they were chattering at such an insane speed and also in Senufo, but I could clearly detect the shock in their voices. Once I knew what they were going on about I tried to explain to them that that was perfectly okay in America, and that women there often wear much shorter skirts than the one my mom had on. They went on to explain to me that a married woman would never wear that because her husband wouldn't allow it. Anyway, sorry mom, but a few people in my village now think you're a floozy :/.
The other weird thing to happen today was that these two teenage boys came to my house and told my homologue that they wanted to chat with me. I had my bucket and shower stuff in my hands when I walked past them and my homologue told me they wanted to chat. Hoping that it was going to be a quick question, I set my shower stuff down and sat in a chair in front of them. The first thing the boy asked me was if I was a Madame or a Madamoiselle. i always laugh at this question, I'm not sure why, but I answered Madameoiselle. Then he was like 'okay Madameoiselle we just came here to say good evening' (this was all in French btw), then he proceeded to ask me if I knew what AIDS was. I said of course and he went on to explain that he didn't believe it was a real thing, instead he felt it was a project brought to Africa by white people. I sat there in shock because I didn't know how to respond to that. The boy and my homologue took this to mean that I didn't understand what he was saying, so he asked me straight if I thought AIDS existed. I told them that I did understand and that of course it exists. He then asked me where it exists, and I said it exists in every continent, even the United States. He then asked me if I knew where AIDS began. I told him that I didn't and he said well if you don't know where it came from then how do you know it exists? Unfortunately my French is not nearly good enough to be able to discuss this topic adequately, but I did my best. I went on to ask him if he thought Yellow Fever was real, and he said yes, and then I asked him where Yellow Fever started, and of course he said he didn't know, and to that I said 'see it's the same thing. I don't know where AIDS came from and you don't know where Yellow Fever came from but they are both real.' I also told him that I knew of people with AIDS. I'm not sure I was able to convince him that AIDS is in fact real and not just a farce created by white people, but I hope I was able to make somewhat of a dent. I found the whole situation to be awkward because I don't feel as if I am all that knowledgeable on the topic of AIDS, and I never like talking about things I don't know all that much about. However I did ask them if they knew how AIDS was transmitted, and he said that it came from someone with AIDS getting cut and then the blood of that person getting on you. I tried to explain to him in my poor French that it can be transmitted through blood but not from something like coughing on someone. I also tried to say that it is transmitted sexually, but I completely forgot the word for sex in French, so I said it came from the thing a man and a woman do together in their bedroom. That was beyond awkward, and I only dug further into the awkwardness by trying to tell them about condoms, but again not knowing the word in French for that. For condoms I tried to use hand signals and said it was the thing in a box that a man uses. Thankfully the sun was going down, so I decided to use that as an excuse to leave that awkward situation and go take my bucket bath. I think they were all just as uncomfortable as I was so I think they were just as glad for me to leave as I was.
Be My Lover
written Sept. 26, 2010
Someone in my village has La Bouche's Be My Lover on a CD or a casette and they have played it pretty much everysingle night and several times during the day for the past week. Be My Lover just so happens to be one of my all-time favorite songs from the 90s, although I'm afraid that this random villager may be changing reversing that. I really hope they tire of it soon because I really don't want to hate that song.
Today I decided I would try and integrate myself into village life by doing something that women do here. I have previously avoided all other 'woman's work' because it's just too hard for me, and I'm also really lazy. For example, I have no desire to pound millet, no desire to go pick peanuts or peppers or whatever the in-season crop is, no desire to learn how to cook over a fire, and no to be able to pick up something scalding hot with my bare hands. Although today I figured I'd help with the corn processing because it seemed easy enough. All I had to do was pick the kernels off of whatever you call the thing that the kernels are attached to, you know the long cylindrical thing in the middle of corn, the part you don't eat. So anyway the corn had been dried so the kernels were very hard and somewhat difficult to get off, but once you get 2 or 3 off the rest come off pretty easy with multiple flicks of your thumb, or so I thought. Turns out those easy flicks of my thumb were destroying my skin. After about 10 ears of corn I looked down to see a GIGANTIC red, bulbous blister in the middle of my thumb. Apparently my dainty hands can't handle the work of Malian woman. It was kind of as if my body was like 'I told you so... there's a reason I didn't want you to do any of those things.'
Yesterday my homologue told me about a pretty common belief held by Malian villagers who have very little experience with foreigners. He said that they believe that white people, and in Mali I fall under this category I guess because I come from America even though there are Malians with lighter skin than me, can see the devil/demons. He said that there is a good chance that if I were to go walking with him, and we came upon a sacred place that someone would most likely shout out to him that he should watch out because I can see the devil and I will bring it to him, and thus kill him or terrorize him, I don't really know what Malian devils do to people once they are summoned. So my homologue and I proceeded to laugh at the thought of that, but then his laughter ceased and he looked me in the eyes and very seriously asked me 'You can't see the devil, right?' and to that I was like 'What?? No, of course not!'
Someone in my village has La Bouche's Be My Lover on a CD or a casette and they have played it pretty much everysingle night and several times during the day for the past week. Be My Lover just so happens to be one of my all-time favorite songs from the 90s, although I'm afraid that this random villager may be changing reversing that. I really hope they tire of it soon because I really don't want to hate that song.
Today I decided I would try and integrate myself into village life by doing something that women do here. I have previously avoided all other 'woman's work' because it's just too hard for me, and I'm also really lazy. For example, I have no desire to pound millet, no desire to go pick peanuts or peppers or whatever the in-season crop is, no desire to learn how to cook over a fire, and no to be able to pick up something scalding hot with my bare hands. Although today I figured I'd help with the corn processing because it seemed easy enough. All I had to do was pick the kernels off of whatever you call the thing that the kernels are attached to, you know the long cylindrical thing in the middle of corn, the part you don't eat. So anyway the corn had been dried so the kernels were very hard and somewhat difficult to get off, but once you get 2 or 3 off the rest come off pretty easy with multiple flicks of your thumb, or so I thought. Turns out those easy flicks of my thumb were destroying my skin. After about 10 ears of corn I looked down to see a GIGANTIC red, bulbous blister in the middle of my thumb. Apparently my dainty hands can't handle the work of Malian woman. It was kind of as if my body was like 'I told you so... there's a reason I didn't want you to do any of those things.'
Yesterday my homologue told me about a pretty common belief held by Malian villagers who have very little experience with foreigners. He said that they believe that white people, and in Mali I fall under this category I guess because I come from America even though there are Malians with lighter skin than me, can see the devil/demons. He said that there is a good chance that if I were to go walking with him, and we came upon a sacred place that someone would most likely shout out to him that he should watch out because I can see the devil and I will bring it to him, and thus kill him or terrorize him, I don't really know what Malian devils do to people once they are summoned. So my homologue and I proceeded to laugh at the thought of that, but then his laughter ceased and he looked me in the eyes and very seriously asked me 'You can't see the devil, right?' and to that I was like 'What?? No, of course not!'
Cinquantinaire!
written Sept. 23, 2010
So the Independence Day celebration in my village was actually pretty cool, albeit exhausting. It was an all day thing starting at 8 am and finishinglate into the night. The first thing that we did was raise the flag. Everyone was all dressed up in their outfits made with the Cinquantenaire fabric. Amazingly enough I was wearing the exact same fabric as my homologue, even though I had only bought it the day before and had picked it out because I hadn't seen very many people with it. In fact only a handfull of people had the same fabric as us. The Mayor and the Premiere Adjoint (kind of like the 2nd in command under the mayor) were two other people with the same fabric, so basically I unitentionally dressed as a VIP. This worked out perfectly because, as usual, I spent the whole day with the VIPs. After the raising of the flag was the start of the bike race. It seems like almost every village in Mali had a bike race (I feel like this is a very French influence, very Tour de France-esque). There were probably 8 men racing and I've been told that they biked 52K total. It took them about 2 hours to complete the race. While the bike race was going on there was a lot of dancing to the balofone and drums and a lot of speech making. There were also a lot of games for the kids to play, one of which was very similar to musical chairs! There was also a 1k foot race and tons and tons more dancing. I tried to take videos and pictures of everything. I even got pictures of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners of the bike race. The most amazing thing is that they all raced in those jelly shoes that I described in a previous blog entry. A couple of the dudes were even wearing cut-off jean shorts. None of them looked like they were participating in a bike race, but I guess they were wearing what they had. Around 1 we broke for lunch. A huge group of men and I went to the Mairie (Mayor's Office) and had lunch there. There was a massive amount of Tigadegena (Peanut Butter Stew) and Rice for us to eat. We all sat in circles of 4-8 around a communal bowl. This made me cringe because there was no soap in sight and I didn't see very many buckets of water so this meant that not only would I be washing my hands without soap, but I would also be washing them with dirty water and then eating with them. The whole time I was eating I was thinking to myself, 'God I'm gonna be soooo sick tomorrow' and 'Uhp, guess I'll just go ahead and shove Giardia into my mouth.' I think in the future I should carry a bar of soap around with me, so even if I am using dirty water, at least I'll be killing some of the germs. Anyway, after lunch we got back to celebrating. The afternoon consisted of multiple dance competitions and an award ceremony for the top 3 highest ranked students in all the grades of the Primary and Secondary Schools. I was called up to hand out some of the wards to the students, and I had to pose for many pictures. The dance competition was smaller than I had expected because I had seen a lot more young people dancing at other village events I had gone to. The most fun competition to watch was the young boys competition. They were all so small, but yet they moved so fast! There were also competitions amongst young men, young women and young girls. Most of these I got on video and will try to upload to my facebook so you can see how crazy Malian dance looks. The last event of the day was the soccer game, where new jerseys and soccer balls were presented. Overall it was a really fun and inceredibley exhausting day. the mayor even joked with me at the end that I must be exhausted because I hadn't taken my usual nap, he was right though.
Oh, I forgot to mention that literally the entire day people kept coming up to me and asking me to get up and dance, and everytime I refused. Each time I kind of froze up like a five year old girl wanting to hide behind her mom because she's afraid of the stranger trying to talk to them. I was afraid that they were going to pull me up and make me dance with them. I don't know why I'm so afraid of dancing with them. I think it may be a combination of me not knowing how to dance like them and me not wanting thousands of eyes on me as I make a fool of myself dancing. I have however danced in public like this before, but that has always been with other Tubabs (white people/ Americans). When I'm with at least one other person I feel comfortable, because for me there is comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one who looks like an idiot. Anyway, Joyeux Cinquantenaire Mali!
So the Independence Day celebration in my village was actually pretty cool, albeit exhausting. It was an all day thing starting at 8 am and finishinglate into the night. The first thing that we did was raise the flag. Everyone was all dressed up in their outfits made with the Cinquantenaire fabric. Amazingly enough I was wearing the exact same fabric as my homologue, even though I had only bought it the day before and had picked it out because I hadn't seen very many people with it. In fact only a handfull of people had the same fabric as us. The Mayor and the Premiere Adjoint (kind of like the 2nd in command under the mayor) were two other people with the same fabric, so basically I unitentionally dressed as a VIP. This worked out perfectly because, as usual, I spent the whole day with the VIPs. After the raising of the flag was the start of the bike race. It seems like almost every village in Mali had a bike race (I feel like this is a very French influence, very Tour de France-esque). There were probably 8 men racing and I've been told that they biked 52K total. It took them about 2 hours to complete the race. While the bike race was going on there was a lot of dancing to the balofone and drums and a lot of speech making. There were also a lot of games for the kids to play, one of which was very similar to musical chairs! There was also a 1k foot race and tons and tons more dancing. I tried to take videos and pictures of everything. I even got pictures of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners of the bike race. The most amazing thing is that they all raced in those jelly shoes that I described in a previous blog entry. A couple of the dudes were even wearing cut-off jean shorts. None of them looked like they were participating in a bike race, but I guess they were wearing what they had. Around 1 we broke for lunch. A huge group of men and I went to the Mairie (Mayor's Office) and had lunch there. There was a massive amount of Tigadegena (Peanut Butter Stew) and Rice for us to eat. We all sat in circles of 4-8 around a communal bowl. This made me cringe because there was no soap in sight and I didn't see very many buckets of water so this meant that not only would I be washing my hands without soap, but I would also be washing them with dirty water and then eating with them. The whole time I was eating I was thinking to myself, 'God I'm gonna be soooo sick tomorrow' and 'Uhp, guess I'll just go ahead and shove Giardia into my mouth.' I think in the future I should carry a bar of soap around with me, so even if I am using dirty water, at least I'll be killing some of the germs. Anyway, after lunch we got back to celebrating. The afternoon consisted of multiple dance competitions and an award ceremony for the top 3 highest ranked students in all the grades of the Primary and Secondary Schools. I was called up to hand out some of the wards to the students, and I had to pose for many pictures. The dance competition was smaller than I had expected because I had seen a lot more young people dancing at other village events I had gone to. The most fun competition to watch was the young boys competition. They were all so small, but yet they moved so fast! There were also competitions amongst young men, young women and young girls. Most of these I got on video and will try to upload to my facebook so you can see how crazy Malian dance looks. The last event of the day was the soccer game, where new jerseys and soccer balls were presented. Overall it was a really fun and inceredibley exhausting day. the mayor even joked with me at the end that I must be exhausted because I hadn't taken my usual nap, he was right though.
Oh, I forgot to mention that literally the entire day people kept coming up to me and asking me to get up and dance, and everytime I refused. Each time I kind of froze up like a five year old girl wanting to hide behind her mom because she's afraid of the stranger trying to talk to them. I was afraid that they were going to pull me up and make me dance with them. I don't know why I'm so afraid of dancing with them. I think it may be a combination of me not knowing how to dance like them and me not wanting thousands of eyes on me as I make a fool of myself dancing. I have however danced in public like this before, but that has always been with other Tubabs (white people/ Americans). When I'm with at least one other person I feel comfortable, because for me there is comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one who looks like an idiot. Anyway, Joyeux Cinquantenaire Mali!
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