Busy week so far! We have 93 women and kids that need and should have already received mosquito nets from the clinic, so I have been typing up lists of names and immunization card numbers that we will bring to the clinic board on Friday. At that point we wait for them to give us a meeting so we can discuss what days we can bring our community to the clinic to get their nets! I have also been stamping receipt books that will be used in collecting funds for the clinic. Stamping each page and counting all the pages is all to keep people honest…we don’t want any of the money we are working so hard to get pocketed! You hear a phrase a lot here: to eat money. The people in this community have seen their money eaten time and time again, and one of the hardest parts of our job is to convince them that this is not the case this time. 
Another interesting eating phrase: in French, rather than saying you are full, you can say you have eaten your hunger. I really liked that. I find that if I don’t eat my hunger, my hunger eats me since all I can think about is food! Mike and I (although honestly mostly Mike) made a delicious spaghetti last night. Onions and green peppers in tomato paste with chicken and spaghetti noodles! Oh my how scrumptious.
I am finally sending some pictures, although unfortunately you don’t get to see my beautiful face because I haven’t taken any pictures of myself! There is a view from my room’s window, a photo of our family’s bonne (maid), a photo of the sweet lady who sells oranges outside my door along with one of her friends (orange lady on the left, friend on the right) and a picture of the market down the street from my house. The market is really busy and colorful and filthy, and I promise more pictures of it later.
I want to explain the situation of the bonne, which can really throw people off (I mean, you know I’m in a really poor area of what is now the 3rd poorest country in terms of human devleopment, so how do they have maids, right? By the way, Mali is better off than Sierra Leone and Niger). Bonnes usually are from villages, read REALLY poor, and often come work for families in Bamako to earn some extra money for a dowry or for their families or something like that. These are women who do not stop working. Ma, our bonne, is a cook, housecleaner, laundress, dishwasher, shopper and full-time mom. I don’t understand how she does everything she does on the little sleep she gets and poor quality and quantity of food she eats. I wake up every morning to Ma sweeping the dirt courtyard outside, and whenever someone comes home late after the door is locked, it is Ma who wakes up to let them in. One of my first days here she admired my earrings. When I pointed to her ears, which had little twigs where earrings normally are, she said waari te n bolo, I have no money. I took my earrings right out and put them in her ears, and when she looked at them in the mirror, her eyes lit up. Despite her obviously hard life, Ma is the only person here who never complains and always has a big smile and handshake for me at any time of day. She has the cutest baby, Pabi, who definitely takes after her mom in the smile department. I’m sure you will get more pictures of them, as well.
Hope you are all well at home. Loving and missing!
Another interesting eating phrase: in French, rather than saying you are full, you can say you have eaten your hunger. I really liked that. I find that if I don’t eat my hunger, my hunger eats me since all I can think about is food! Mike and I (although honestly mostly Mike) made a delicious spaghetti last night. Onions and green peppers in tomato paste with chicken and spaghetti noodles! Oh my how scrumptious.
I am finally sending some pictures, although unfortunately you don’t get to see my beautiful face because I haven’t taken any pictures of myself! There is a view from my room’s window, a photo of our family’s bonne (maid), a photo of the sweet lady who sells oranges outside my door along with one of her friends (orange lady on the left, friend on the right) and a picture of the market down the street from my house. The market is really busy and colorful and filthy, and I promise more pictures of it later.
I want to explain the situation of the bonne, which can really throw people off (I mean, you know I’m in a really poor area of what is now the 3rd poorest country in terms of human devleopment, so how do they have maids, right? By the way, Mali is better off than Sierra Leone and Niger). Bonnes usually are from villages, read REALLY poor, and often come work for families in Bamako to earn some extra money for a dowry or for their families or something like that. These are women who do not stop working. Ma, our bonne, is a cook, housecleaner, laundress, dishwasher, shopper and full-time mom. I don’t understand how she does everything she does on the little sleep she gets and poor quality and quantity of food she eats. I wake up every morning to Ma sweeping the dirt courtyard outside, and whenever someone comes home late after the door is locked, it is Ma who wakes up to let them in. One of my first days here she admired my earrings. When I pointed to her ears, which had little twigs where earrings normally are, she said waari te n bolo, I have no money. I took my earrings right out and put them in her ears, and when she looked at them in the mirror, her eyes lit up. Despite her obviously hard life, Ma is the only person here who never complains and always has a big smile and handshake for me at any time of day. She has the cutest baby, Pabi, who definitely takes after her mom in the smile department. I’m sure you will get more pictures of them, as well.
Hope you are all well at home. Loving and missing!
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