It's impossible to be a germophobe in Mali

written February 11, 2011
Today I was handed an unopened Fanta that had stuff floating in it. I drank it. All of it. This is how far I have come. If you can believe it I once use to be a bit of a germophobe and I had to give that up real quick once I arrived in Mali. Back in the States my opinion of people would often be based on how sanitary they were. For example my freshman year of college I was taking a French class and there was this really cool girl who sat next to me. We had some pretty interesting conversations, and I was pretty sure a friendship was developing. Well, one day I was in the bathroom washing my hands after doing my business when I heard a toilet flush and then saw my friend come out of the stall. She waved hi to me and then walked right out of the bathroom. Just walked right out! I was floored, and disgusted. Who doesn't wash their hands with soap and water after using the bathroom?? From that moment on I knew we couldn't be friends, and I'm pretty sure I never spoke to her again. Anyway now that I am living in Mali I can't afford to judge people like that. I would literally have no friends since very few people in my village wash their hands with soap and water.
I am constantly dirty in this country. There is red dust everywhere now that the rains have stopped and we've entered dry season. Every day the water I pour over myself during my bucket bath runs red from all the dirt caked on my body. It's pretty gross. My clothes always have dirt stains on them, and I guess I've just gotten use to it. I actually had an issue with this in my village recently. Every day I walk around with my green backpack, so inevitably it got pretty dirty from all the clouds of dust I have to walk through on a daily basis. The light grey patches on it were basically red. I got a lot of flack for this in village. Everyone would stare at my bag and would then whisper some stuff in Senufo while still looking at the bag. I'm sure they were talking about how dirty it was. I could've cared less about what they thought because there was no way I was gonna spend like an hour scrubbing that bag when it would only take a day for it to be filthy again. I guess the diapproval of my dirty backpack reached its boiling point because the other day my homologue came to my door and told me that he told his wife that she should wash my bag the next day and that first thing when I woke I should hand it over to her. I don't know why, but at that moment I was incredibley embarassed. My bag had never embarassed me before, but I guess it was the fact that everyone thought I was incapable of cleaning it that got to me. I tried to say no like a million times and I tried to explain that I could do it, to which my homologue said no that he already explained to his wife that she had to do it and that it was okay because I probably just wasn't use to washing things like that (I wanted to be like "Um I'm not use to washing anything because we have washing machines in America and as you can see my clothes are always clean, when I begin my day anyway, so I think I have the whole washing by hand thing figured out and I'm sure I can figure out how to clean a bag, I just haven't done it yet... of course I didn't say all that though). I eventually just gave in, and the next morning I handed my bag over. When she returned it at the end of the day man it was clean!!
So since my last blog quite a bit has changed when it comes to the plans for my new house. A few weeks ago my homologue walked me out past the mango trees to this open space and explained to me that the house I thought I would be moving into wasn't the best option. He explained that the house was owned by the Catholic Church in my village and that there is a possibility that they might want to reclaim it sometime in the future. He told me that he believed it was best that they just build an entirely new house for me, and that it could be a house that the village could continue to use for guests, like other Peace Corps volunteers, in the future after I'm long and gone. I told him that that was definitely a better option, but that I wanted to move into my house sisan sisan (bambara for right now). He told me that it only takes a few days to build a house, and that I would be able to move into it very soon. I told him that that was all good and well, but where would the money come from? Peace Corps was only willing to donate 5 bags of cement to my cause since they already dumped a bunch of money into the unacceptable house I am currently living in. My homologue told me that there had been a meeting the day before with the APE and the CGS (APE= the Malian equivalent of the PTO and the CGS= the school board) and they agreed to pay for everything. I was super happy to hear this because the open space where we were standing would be my new yard, and there was a water spicket just a few steps away! (with the Catholic house I would've had to walk to a well and draw my water, which would suck because even my unacceptable house has a water spicket and I've gotten very spoiled by it). Also I have several bars of reseau where my new house will be!!! (Reseau is French for cell phone service) No more walking around searching for bars of service for me!! Anyway that all happened about a month ago, so it didn't quite happen in just a few days like my homologue said it would. Two weeks ago all of the 7th and 8th grade students in my village came to move the 2000 bricks my homologue made to the open space, and about a week after that the students moved rocks that would be used for the foundation. It was really a sight to see! The Director of the Secondary School, my host dad, just ordered all of the kids to come do the manual labor as if it were classwork. I felt kind of bad that the kids had to do all of this for me under the hot sun, but I reallllllyyyy want my new house. Over the past few days some of the men in my village have been building my house, and they pretty much finished the construction of the house today. All that is left is putting on the tin roof and putting in the windows and the door, all of which can be done in less than a day. Also they have to build a wall and put up a gwa (basically a hangar, or a shaded awning type thing). The house is super small, but I guess I can't really complain though because at least now I will have privacy. Unfotunately everything won't be finished before I leave for Senegal on the 16th, but oh well. I'm hoping it will be done by the time I come back.
So yea, I'm going to Senegal!!! On the 16th a huge group of us Mali volunteers ( I think around 53 of us) will be getting on a 25-hour long bus ride to Dakar. I can't wait!! We're all going to Senegal for WAIST ( I think this stands for West African Invitational Softball Tournament). Basically it will be 3 days of Softball that I will not be participating in (I know, you're not surprised at all since I have never been much of a sports player). I'm probably going to explore Dakar and relax on the beach! After the tournament my friends an I plan on exploring other parts of Senegal for 3 days and then we plan on going to The Gambia (a tiny country right in the middle of Senegal)for another 3 days. This is gonna be a much needed vacation, and I can't wait to see all of my friends that I haven't seen since New Years!!