This is sort of the month of microfinance in Sikoroni! Mike has had three trainings the past two weeks with the five women who compose the microfinance committee. They are a great group—very interested and eager to learn about profits and payments and most importantly—eager to help the community. Mike has put in a seriously tremendous effort. He’s teaching math, the fundamentals of loans, how to advertise, how to work on a committee…I think you get the idea. The women even got to try some American team-builders, although the human knot didn’t really knock their socks off. My friend Papou has been invaluable for helping translate into Bambara (or French…) at the meetings. He is an economics student, so can help Mike with some of those math-y terms in French. The women finished their last training on Friday.

For Saturday, Niang and I planned not only our CHAG meeting, but also a surprise birthday party for Mike (he’s 22!). The Microfinance Committee also came, and we all sang “Joyeux Anniversaire”, drank sugary Malian beverages, and watched Mike blow out his candle and eat a piece of cake. Mike also threw himself a little pizza party at the café by his house where he has a lot of friends. I don’t think I’ve ever seen seven pizzas go so quickly! I’m sure it will be a very remembered birthday.

On the clinic fundraising front, we got some EXCELLENT news last week! We’ve been waiting to hear from the U.S. Embassy here about whether we received their Self-Help Grant for the coming year. Turns out, we are amazing and got $6,000 to put towards the cost of the clinic in Sourakabougou. This means, however, that the community must contribute 33% of the clinic cost (I believe this is around $8,000), so fundraising needs to get kicked up! The clinic committee is finally starting to work (after we threatened a break in our partnership) so I have a completely renewed motivation in clinic affairs.

It is also “le mois de Carème” here…Ramadan. This has its ups and downs…more ups for me since I don’t fast all day. I can eat, drink water, and swallow my spit! Yayyy! We eat really good dinners, followed by bouille (a sugary, watery hot cereal) and some type of sugared drink—usually extremely delicious. Last night was ginger-lemonade of some sort. Unfortunately, the Malian TV station has stopped showing the evening soap opera, which was decidedly the best, so I will never know how “The Heart of the Peach” turns out. Sigh. Also, Niang, Mike, and I went to the movie theatre Thursday night only to discover that it, too, will be closed for the month. I can’t imagine anything closing that long for religious purposes in the United States!

And finally, Fear-Factor, Mali! Background information: I really like dates. I just discovered you can buy them here, particularly this month since they are often used to break fast for Ramadan. I bought about a pound at a store by my house. They definitely were aged, as I found out later…

I sat in my room, Harry Potter in my lap, munching my dates. I was riveted by the story…would Harry escape the Death-Eaters?...When I noticed a small bug crawling on my arm. I brushed it off and continued reading. A bug crawled across the page. I smooshed it, and immediately examined the date I was about to put into my mouth…it had bugs in it. Having eaten about ten similar dates, I swallowed my disgust and my rising nausea and rationalized…just extra protein, right? Then I threw the rest of the dates away, tried not to give in to the urge to vomit, and finished up with Harry Potter. Dad would have been so proud!

This has been an interesting week! The projects we’d been planning have finished up and my work for the rest of the month is going to be more administrative: developing a system for and electing new members to our health action committee and potentially expanding our programs into a new sector! I’m also continuing to work with the clinic committee to fundraise the community’s part of the clinic costs, which has been frustrating. They are a new organization and sort of lack…organization.

In the mean time, I’ve been keeping busy. Nana and her friend were cooking coconut outside my room and I thought I’d include a picture. They grate coconut and then cook it in oil…it’s delicious! Ma and her baby are also pictured. I tried braiding Batouma’s (the bonne at Niang’s house) hair one night, but didn’t get too far. She actually left it in a couple of days though! Granted, she wore a scarf over it, but still I was flattered.

I have been visiting the clinic in the mornings and then returning to Niang’s to help with the cooking if there is anything left to be done. Last Tuesday at the clinic I stayed two hours and in that time twelve of fifteen patients that the nurses cared for were there for malaria complications. It really is a great complement to our work in malaria prevention to see how much of an impact the parasite actually has here.

Batouma and Massura (Niang’s wife) do pretty much all of the cooking. I took a picture of them in their “kitchen”. Mike and I decided we wouldn’t make it too long if we had to cook for ourselves on coal stoves. Massura also went to a wedding and got all spruced up for it, so I had to take a picture of that! She is an incredible woman! I can’t get over the fact that she’s my age but is married with a two year-old!

And then I mentioned the party Niang’s mother (woman stirring the pot of chickens) was having. She invited twenty of her friends over and we cooked fifteen chickens and twenty kilos of potatoes into French fries. Crriiiipes! My favorite moment of the day was arriving to watch Batouma and Massura clean chickens. Batouma grabbed one without a head and hit it up and down on the washtub and it made chicken squawks as the air rushed over its vocal chords. Sorry if that’s too graphic, but it was completely hilarious. It was quite a day. I cooked French fries for five hours. That is a loooong time. The food was delicious though, and everyone enjoyed it.

The next day I left to spend a few days in Baco Djicoroni with Fanta and my friends. It was a good visit, although the day I arrived I got sick again with what I’m assuming is the same as last time—fever sore throat stomach troubles. I spent the visit for the most part in bed sleeping. I returned to Sikoroni today and immediately bought more medication, so Inshallah (God willing) things will improve soon! I’m certainly tired of falling sick so frequently.

Things are also really happening in the microfinance arena. Mike has a committee of women that he is in the process of training. They will be in charge of deciding who is given loans and the time frame of reimbursements. Very exciting stuff! I believe they are planning on taking in their first loan applications this week.

It’s HOT again in Bamako, as the rainy season seemed to end with August. We’ve had five days without any substantial rain. The plus side is that the market is a lot easier to get through when you don’t have to wade through a river or mud and garbage.

Thanks for your emails and lots of love and missing!

The accompaniment program and the mosquito net treatments are finished! In total, we treated around 300 mosquito nets (the first treatment last spring treated 100, so we’re growing!) and were able to receive and distribute 37 nets! The organization went much more smoothly for the second half of the accompaniment: we got the vaccination cards in advance in order to find the unvaccinated early to make sure they got to the clinic. For everyone else, we took down names and information to ensure they received their mosquito nets. We only had one pregnant woman come in for her consultation, though the other women had received consultations and still needed mosquito nets. It is our hope that as we continue to implement this program in the family sectors we have created that it will become better attended and publicized (much like the net treatments!). I’m including some photos from the last net treatments as well. You can observe our nice sign, which says the name of our organization, Sigida Keneyali. It also says welcome to Sikoroni in French, and below that it welcomes in Bambara!

Now that there is a pause in my work after all that activity, I took the opportunity to catch up on sleep! I have had slower days now sorting out our financial dispenses and stamping receipts that will be used in the collection of funds for the new clinic. I’ve also been honing my tea skills. Today Niang (our director) let me make tea for his mother, so I must be getting pretty sweet! This next month is going to be less focused on projects and more focused on organizing the committee for the clinic fundraising and the community health action group. It’s also going to be Ramadan in a bit over a week, and apparently things slow to a halt during le mois de Carème (I’ve no idea how the French spell that one) as people seldom eat during the day and you party at night. I’ll let you know how it goes, though I think I might skip on skipping meals. If I don’t “eat my hunger” my hunger eats me.

Speaking of food, I woke up a few days ago and a chicken was hanging outside my door by its feet, with its neck dripping blood. We had chicken and potatoes for breakfast the next day. In Niang’s family, where I eat lunch and dinner, we also had chicken. No part is wasted, so the head appears in the dish as well as the intestines. I try to avoid, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what you’re eating in the sauce. So I had my first chicken intestine today. Not terrible! There are chickens running all over his yard and apparently there’s going to be a little party this Tuesday night. I anticipate plucking and washing a lot of bird carcasses. Kind of like after a pheasant hunting trip, eh dad? I have no idea how many people, but there sure are a lot of chickens!

Happy September with lots of love and hugs!

Thursday morning Niang and I went to the clinic to welcome our community and help the unvaccinated kids under five get vaccines along with free mosquito nets! The whole experience was really interesting. We have been working with three sectors of Sikoroni since my arrival to get the names of kids who can benefit and to advertise in the community about the program, so I was pretty surprised by the disorganization of the final product! We had less than half of our previewed turnout and the clinic informed us last minute that we also needed to write down any of the vaccinations that the children have already received on a paper and we would have to get the nets to them the next day.

Niang and I spent three hours looking through and recording vaccination histories from vaccination cards while the women and children waited. Very patiently! Most of the children had already been vaccinated but had not benefited from the free net. It is cheaper for us to pay a clinic fee and get a free net than to buy a net for these kids, so the program still works. Despite the minor disappointments, we caught two children who were not up to date on vaccinations…who had in fact not been vaccinated since their birth! It felt really good to see them getting their shots and know they would be now protected against yellow fever and polio and all that great stuff.

Friday morning we again met at the clinic to write up receipts for every child that would benefit from a net then collected 22 nets to distribute in the families. The next few hours were spent trying to match the right kids with the nets—which was really hard even though we had their “addresses” and names! All nets were given to their new owners except for Adama Sissoko, the one-year old man of mystery, who was not to be found. He was not listed on our address sheet, but we had collected his vaccination card and information at the clinic Thursday, so hopefully his mother will come looking for his net soon! Next Wednesday and Thursday will be more of the same. I’ve included pictures of everyone at the clinic Thursday and the net distribution from Friday. Saturday and Sunday are more net treatment days!

After the morning of work on Friday, I had a visit from a Carleton graduate who is passing through Bamako as she voyages through West Africa! She will be here for three days. It was great to talk to another American for the first time in a week, although since she doesn’t speak any French, the Malians were left out of the conversation. Shortly after she showed up, my friends Bintou (Tou) and Papou surprised me with a visit!!! I was soooo excited to have my friends come all the way from their quarter of the city to see where I work. Tou even brought me lokos (plantains) to fry because she knows fried plantains are my favorite thing to eat here. Mmmmm!

We all sat on the terrace with Niang and one of his friends. It started to rain and kept going for over four hours, but it was really nice to talk with friends and make tea under the shelter of the terrace. I’m getting in lots of practice making tea right now, and Niang is a great teacher! The hardest part is when you make bubbles in the cups because you have to pour the tea from a little glass cup into the other little glass cup, and you can’t really make bubbles unless you pour from high in the air, but this inevitably leads to spills. Sigh. I am improving. I’ll include some pictures Niang took of me making tea Thursday. Everyone went home just before sunset, and the family and I watched the evening soap and ate rice and sauce!

I have been really enjoying my health this week. I appreciate Mali much more when I’m not running outside in the rain to the bathroom every hour J I find so much about living here extremely interesting. For example: last week I had a dream that as I reached down to pick up Aba, Niang’s two-year old son, a black dog lunged at my face. I woke up immediately, but it was a vivid dream, so I told Niang’s mother and sister about it later in the day. It also happened that this was when I was feverish and sick, so Niang’s mother gave me some amber colored crystals to put in my bag to protect me. I figured it couldn’t hurt! Today Niang and his friends discussed how since my skin is really clear, when sorcerers cast spells and everything, my skin can pick it up, which is probably why I had that dream and got sick. They also fully condone antibiotics to help me get better, by the way. It seems like the more things you try to get rid of an illness here, the better…even if it involves the supernatural.

Well if you read all that I’m flattered! I love you and miss you!--me

Lots going on in Sikoroni lately! Mike departed for two weeks of traveling throughout Mali last week, and Gowri left for Paris shortly afterward. Niang and I stayed in Bamako to hold down the fort, and since I have been rather sick Niang has been busy! Just in case you are curious, my fever and (ahem) intestinal issues were NOT caused by malaria, typhoid, or parasites. I am on a couple antibiotics the past few days and stayed with my host family and friends in another quarter (Baco Djicoroni ACI rather than Sikoroni) while I recovered. I’m feeling much better after about three days of nonstop sleeping!

The Community Health Action Group (CHAG) that is in place here decided that we should do mosquito net treatment days for each of the three sectors. It is the rainy season, so most people have mosquito nets right now, but they are half as effective if left untreated. Last Saturday we had our first mosquito net treatment day. I was really impressed by the turnout. When we counted up packages of treatment, we had treated over 120 nets! We are going to do the same thing this Saturday and Sunday.

I’m including photos of Saturday’s events. We treated the nets with a product called BLOC, which came in tablets. You measure out a half liter of water in a large bowl for each tablet, dissolve the tablet, and add a net to the bowl. Then you mix it all up! I added the water—a very difficult job ;)

Nets were lined up behind me all morning! We treated for about three hours. If you notice in my picture, my hair is braided. I have tried to avoid “d’être tressé” (to be braided) all my time in Mali so far, but in this case, my friend Fifi just attacked while I was napping in a chair! Oh well…it was good bonding. My objection is pretty much purely aesthetic. White people don’t have pretty skulls. Just my luck to be caught on camera the next day! The day after the net treatment, I left for Baco Djicoroni.

I returned to Sikoroni Wednesday before 9 AM to meet Niang at the clinic. We were supposed to meet the CHAG members to welcome the pregnant women of sectors 1 and 2, but no one showed up! At 11 AM, Niang and I went out to visit the homes of the women who were supposedly coming to the clinic this morning to receive care and a free mosquito net. They had been misinformed about the time, so we told them to come next Wednesday with sector 3. Niang and I then visited the homes of all the children under five who either had not received vaccinations or had not received mosquito nets with their vaccinations to make sure they arrive at the right time this morning! It was a lot of visiting and walking around to different houses, but very worth it to make sure the message got out.

I remembered my camera for some of the houses, so I’ll include photos of that experience. As I remarked a month or so ago, it is truly amazing to see the families we are helping. I asked Niang today how Sigida Keneyali chose which houses to include in each sector. He told me they picked the poorest houses and left the ones that were better off. One of the houses we visited has 67 people living in it—a truly extended family. I don’t think the pictures do justice to the enormity of the poverty or of the amazing spirits of the inhabitants of these houses, but they’ll give you some idea!


So…a rather long entry, but things have really been happening! I took more pictures this morning when the kids all showed up at the clinic, and I’ll post about that this weekend along with the next net treatments. Lots of love!

The Sigida Keneyali Microfinance Program!

Mike has been hard at work the past couple of weeks. Having finally found a building to rent for a center, he set to work cleaning out the spiders inside, painting and cementing. The Microfinance Center is located right on the main road through Sourakabougou, the very poor part of Sikoroni (actually, it’s pretty close to where we hope to build the new clinic). I wish I had pictures of the area around the new center so you could see just how stunning it now looks! It has become a beacon of color and cleanliness, if you will just take my word for it. Maybe the before, during, and after pictures can give you some idea of the effort Mike put in. I will also direct you to notice the flowering plants in front of the beautifully crafted sign. Nice touch, Mike! The drawing on the door and the sign is the tentative new logo for Sigida Keneyali which we recently designed with a graphic artist here. The butterfly-like symbol means strength in unity.

Now that Mike has the center, he and Niang and some key community members have been putting together a board of women who will accept applications from women in the community who want loans for new businesses/enterprises. It is our hope that by providing some start-up capital, these women will be able to make money themselves in their new work while paying back their loans. This fight against poverty here is a big step in fighting for health. Hopefully the first applications will be accepted soon, and once the organization gets government approval, the microfinance program can give its first loans!

While my projects are still waiting on other people, I have been making (or drinking) a lot more tea, reading, and catching up on the Malian soaps--which are actually Brazilian soaps--nonetheless riveting! I also started going to the existing clinic to spend time and watch the activities there in the nurse’s area (FYI the clinic we want to build will serve the interior of the community who live too far for the existing clinic to be of use).

When you visit the clinic, you first go to the waiting area. If you need to see a doctor, you sit there until he can see you in his office. If you need the nurses, you wait until one of several patients vacates their office-sized room. There are two beds to the side of the waiting area where there are usually people lying down receiving intravenous rehydration. I’m including photos of the waiting area, the nurses’ room, and the beds.

The nurses’ room (infermière/salle d’acceuil) is a surprisingly busy place every morning. Lots of bandage changing and shots of some kind—though whenever I asked what the shots were or how someone got wounded, I was met with blank stares. Apparently in the nurse’s area, we don’t ask how or why, we treat. The first day must have been some kind of nurse training day, because there were at least seven women, two doctors, and four patients in the very small space. Everyone crowded around a screaming girl while a nurse tried to find a vein in her hand…for about five minutes. It was a little overwhelming! No matter what though, it is always interesting. Bandage changing might get old after a while, but it certainly hasn’t yet!

My host brother, BaKante Karkoss, is a medical student here in Bamako. This morning when I was leaving for the clinic, he was sitting in our courtyard changing the bandages on a girl whose head he stitched after she fell on the cliffs near our street--flies swarming. Never a dull moment! Karkoss has offered to take me with him to his med school classes next week, and I’m excited to see what that is like as well.

I hope you found the visit to the Malian clinic at least half as interesting as I did! At least now you have some idea of what we are trying to build for the community. Thanks for your emails and I send lots of love!