Gowri Chandra, Modibo Niang (Malian Director), ME!, Mike Tong (on Niang's patio).

I had a very amazing weekend visiting my friends and host family from last year! Saturday I got to eat two lunches and two dinners! Bintou, my closest friend here, saved me some of the yams and beef they had for dinner and when I came over I got to eat again. She told me I needed to store up food for when I go back to Sikoroni, where the cuisine is a little less to my tastes. What a friend, eh? I got to make tea with Zana, who is amazing at this activity, play legos with the four-year old Maurice, watch Bintou braid Dadi’s hair, see Tristan and Isolde (an American movie!), and use a toilet! What a vacation!

Yesterday I came back to Sikoroni for a meeting with the clinic committee. It was supposed to be a really straightforward meeting where we distributed receipt books that will be used in the collection of funds in the community. It ended up being a big power trip for the sector chief (not to be confused with the chief of Sourakabougou, who I really like). A little background: this guy holds a hereditary position that does come with a lot of respect and a varying degree of power. This particular chief is pretty much only interested in money. He has sold land in this area that was being used by families because he wanted the money, and lost interest in his involvement in the clinic committee when he found out that we needed money and weren’t interested in dispensing money.

He arrived—long white beard and all--and sat down, all done up in a fluorescent green boubou (long robes), sunglasses, shawl, Hajj hat, and a large multi-colored umbrella. He started out by saying he wanted the committee to disband and that he thought Niang, the director of Sigida Keneyali, should be removed from his position. Basically, this was really frustrating because of its irrelevance. This man is a member of the committee which is a partner of Sigida Keneyali. He had nothing to do with Niang’s appointment and has no power to disband the committee. I was really annoyed that we all had to spend an hour arguing with him rather than devoting the time to the more important matters at hand. Things eventually settled down and it was business as usual.

On the brighter side, Mike finally got his microfinance office! It is a little building in Sourakabougou (Sourakabougou is a part of Sikoroni) right up the road from my house. He has been hard at work painting and cleaning it.

I’m including pictures again! One of me and the lady who sells me peanuts—one of my favorite snacks, Zana making tea, Bintou braiding Dadi’s hair. Also, a picture of the committee meeting yesterday, kids in the courtyard outside my room, and a photo of the view outside my compound’s door. The meeting picture was taken before everyone had arrived. The attendance eventually doubled—Malian time you know. Love you all!

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!

Yesterday I went into one of the sectors of Sikoroni with three of the members of the Community Health Action Group (CHAG). They were going to collect names of pregnant women and unvaccinated children for our clinic treatment/mosquito net project, and invited me along! It was a really hot afternoon, even at 5 PM as we met up and started to walk to the houses. The system works remarkably well. All the compounds have numbers on the outside specifically placed by Sigida Keneyali, 15 total in this sectors, so that the CHAG members can keep track of where the “houses” are and record which ones they visited. Though I have been in Mali before, I was really surprised by some of the places that people were living. The sheer numbers of people living in what might be a city block in the United States was also astonishing. Kids just come out of everywhere, although I did begin to recognize some of the same kids at different houses, following us around as we visited homes. I was pretty useless for the business matters since my Bambara goes about as far as greetings, but loved that I came along to see the people we are working for! The next time I go out, although this may not be for a while, I will bring my camera so that you can all get more of an idea of what this community is like! Lots of friendly people, and not a lot of space, and, as we found out, a scarcity of mosquito nets! Almost everyone mentioned that their kids were vaccinated, but didn’t have nets that were in usable shape. We can really only help pregnant women and unvaccinated kids under the age of 5 with this project, but hopefully even that will help get more nets into families. We finished just before sunset, and I came home feeling a new burst of energy for our work here!

Things have been going at a very Malian pace on the project lately! This can be frustrating from an American perspective, but I think we are all working on our patience. You can’t change the world in a week, right? Last Friday I met with Modibo Kouyate, who is the health guy at the mayor’s office. In order to get the clinic built, we need funding to come from the government, and it looks like we are going to be able to get that help! Of course we still need to get it in writing, but it was exciting to hear nonetheless. Basically, if the community can fund at least 10% of the cost, Sigida Keneyali and any grants we receive can build the maternity portion of the clinic, and the government will then be obligated to build the rest of the clinic! Our next biggest steps are collecting the necessary 10% from the community—not an easy task in an area where people can’t always feed their families.

Later in the day today I will be going out with a member of the community health action group as he completes a survey of the number of pregnant women and unvaccinated children in his sector of the community. These numbers will be useful when we try to schedule appointments at the clinic so that these people can all receive mosquito nets.

Personally the last week has been a little more difficult due to the persistent, but escalating mal au ventre, stomach troubles! Niang, our director here, has told me that he is going to make sure I get better because he is my mother, my father, my grandfather, and my grandmother in Mali. So don’t worry, I’m well taken care of!

We had a new arrival on Sunday morning! Gowri will be working on the women’s occupational training program for the next month. It has been really nice to have another English speaker in the neighborhood!

I miss you all very much and send lots of love your way!

Today on the way to the internet cafe, I had to walk around a donkey rolling on its back in the dirt. Think about that.

To Nature Valley Oats’n’Honey: An Ode

Oh! succulent oaty goodness, free of slime and goo,
The color of wheat, containing protein and complex carbs,
Sugared together with marvelous cereal flavor,
Proportioned to serve only ME!
How superior art thou to lumpy, grey bouille,
That millet “oatmeal” covered in flies,
Sloshed over by the communal spoon.
How superb when placed next to bland fried mystery dough
Dipped in greasy fish sauce.
Oh breakfast of champions, I laud you and Mike Poe
As every third day I ration you out!


Hi! This morning I experienced a real rain! Several hours of water and the street from my house to the pavement is literally rivers of mud. I had to hike up the pagne and try to ignore the trashy water as I waded down to the internet cafe. I get to meet another village chief tonight and I have my first rendezvous with the clinic committee, so that should be interesting! I miss you all. Also, I hope you take a moment today and appreciate your quilted TP, indoor plumbing, regularity, and air fresheners. Much love from Mali!