so we've just come back from our site visit, the places we'll be for the next two years. it would normally bother me to have my future so definitely planned. my new hood is marembilia, which is 80 km from the banking town (if you're interested in pointing me out, google kita mali and it's 60 km west then 20 km south from there) and maybe 1000 people living in between corn and cotton fields. it's rainy season so the stalks stand high, turning the village into a maze that I kept getting lost in. no problem, just say hello sit and drink tea. I'll do this for the next three months... the village is surrounded by rock ridges and dotted with mango and citrus trees, some really good ones for climbing.
we climbed trees on the way back from the tubaniso bar the night before we went to site. we went all the way to the top and shared pocket shots, we could see out to the bamako lights. when we got back to the training center we roasted marshmallows on the bball blacktop and talked to one of the malian cultural facilitators about polygamy. the girls didn't want to hear any of it. I guess I don't care one way or the other, I usually tell the dudes here good work when they start counting their wives by hand. I do care about female genital mutilation though, which they say is performed on 95% of the female population over 15. and they wait until right before they get married. sucky. I'm surprised more don't aspire to become whores. I would. especially with all the laundry to do. it would take me all day to do mine, if the women didn't do it for me.
anyways site was chill. I get two, count it, two mud huts with termite infested thatched roofs. I like when I'm sleeping and the termites that land on my mosquito net squirm through the little holes and land on my face or somehow climb into my shorts. maybe that's what crabs feel like. and my nyegen is about a head and a half too short... and there's no goddamn lid! I'll have to make one when I get back for good. and a pot to sit on as well. screw decking out my room, I'll never be in it. however the nyegen could definitely use a seat and some tile. the food wasn't bad, kayes region is pretty well known for tiga degenna, which translates as peanut butter sauce and can look like anything from Mr. D, especially when they're pouring it, to black tar. but it tastes good, better than most things. and they already figured out I like the spice, so I get a few peppers with each meal. now to get them to feed me the sweet seri for breakfast... though they do have something that I haven't seen anywhere else en brousse - dessert. I think my jatiki (host father) is just a G like that. it's fresh milk mixed with millet powder and sugar. we aren't supposed to drink fresh milk because of parasites and TB risks. I can't really justify having done that, except maybe just because it tastes so good.
didn't do much else during site visit, got offered some women and saw a 12 hour old baby that they wanted me to name. it's weird, the babies don't come out black, or at least this one didn't. I picked Angel, short for my sister Angelica. I guess the woman who had just given birth was working up until the day, and she was already up and greeting people 12 hours postpartum. these chicks don't fuck around. I saw one lady walking through muddy bamako around motos and buses with a baby on her back, a hand full of bags, and a ten gallon bucket on her head. she made it look like nothing. grace baby.
the way back to the kita stage house was long. friday morning I was on my way by 8:00, via donkey cart. I tried convincing my jatiki to let me ride my own donkey, but I kept translating their words as stubborn ass. so off we went, one of the dugutiki's (village chief) sons was my chauffer. he went through at least 10 2-inch thick branches beating the animal into our direction of travel. stubborn ass indeed. it was a rough four hour trip to kokofata. I passed the time sharpening my slingshot skills and learning how to master the donkey. the way was pretty too, lots of rocky hills and climbing spots and big trees and hidden creeks. when we rolled into kokofata I was greeted well. there I had a rice and beef sauce lunch with my contact and his buddies and they hooked me up with some other street food. and they tried giving me one of their girls for dessert. after three hours the transport came - a rice delivery truck that doubled as a bus. it took me 60 km of the rest of the 80 km to kita. on the way we stopped for some dude who wrecked his moto. he was scratched up pretty bad, but if you can walk you have to pay full fare. the driver bitched to me in french about the guy wanting a free ride. I laughed and we smoked cigarettes.
I saw monkeys about halfway there. I thought they were big cats at first, they were burnt orange with long tails and ran down tree trunks on all fours. but when they stopped and turned towards the road I could see flat faces and side by side eyes. they ran together in a pack weaving in and out like fire. it started raining and the windows didn't roll up. I liked it, daytime rains are pretty mild. but when I got to kita the streets were a mess. I got dopped off on the outskirts of town and I walked around for an hour trying to find my way. the PCVs told us to ask locals where the mission was when we got into town, but no one knew what the hell I was talking about. I eventually figured it out and about 300 yards from the house a PC transport passed me. how convenient. I was pissed and just wanted to walk the rest, but they stopped and took my bags for me. a PCT buddy had gin pocket shots lined up for my arrival, and we went to a restaurant for dinner. they only had a few steak plates left, I got a steak plate and chicken plate. and for lunch yesterday in bamako I ate a chawarma frites sandwich (big lamb and fries burrito), half of someone's burger complet (big roll hamburger with fried egg), a plate of fries, a couple of cokes, a double ice cream (pistachio and chocolate), a chocolate eclair and marlboro reds. I found a pack with a street vendor for 600 cfa ($1.20). I'm getting my weight back.
homestay calls me the stomach.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
first trip
we went to bamako the other night. possibly against advisement, I'll leave out details. the transportation there was a mess so I was having fun. we got dropped off right in downtown and needed to get to one of the outer sectors and close to the medical office. the taxi was expensive and the driver wouldn't take all of us in one cab. we said bs so we tried getting there on another sumatra bus (really a big green van without seats and packed 20 deep). it drove around and past all sorts of familiar parts until it dropped us off in the middle of some slummy place. really loud steamy and chaotic. it was like nyc with no sidewalks and muddy nyegen water streets.
I forgot to tell what a nyegen (knee egg en) was in the previous post. it's the unroofed area that you shit in with maybe a ten inch cement hole in the ground. the hole goes to a big ditch underneath the nyegen that, if you're ever brave enough to look down into, you'll see everyone's waste getting turned and churned by fly larvae and worms. you can even hear it. if you're lucky it'll have a lid for cover, I'm not so. when I use it all the flies swarm up from the hole and try to suck face or find a home in my ear or up my nose or on my toes. anywhere flies bother the hell out of me, I assume all were just having fun in the nyegen. so anyway nyegen water is basically everything you do in the nyegen that doesn't go into the pit. pissing, bathing, whatever else (greywater) goes out a drainage hole and into the streets. this is what we were walking in.
people were almost getting run over, holding onto the sumatra and being dragged down the street. we walked for maybe 45 minutes, so we must've been dropped off at least three miles from the restaurant. we took a soundougouba local with us which I think helped a lot. instead of being driven everywhere he just kept asking the way every couple hundred meters. the people I was with were worried that he didn't know where he was going, or that it would take too long. he saved us money at least, which turned out to be pretty significant considering how relatively expensive dinner was. a JD single was 3500 cfa (~$7) and the personal pizzas were at least 5000 cfa. granted, for me, nothing beats american whiskey and hot greasy cheese, but the cost hurt when we've been living off nickles and dimes. I mean the pocket double-shot whiskeys are 300 cfa. that's 60 cents. three or four bucks and you're as golden as your drink. luckily one of the PCTs we met there brought a few with her, so we ended up sharing them. we drank and ate and smoked cigarettes and played pool at this place I don't really want to go back to even though it's where all the PC scandal goes down. or so we heard. the air was snobby, even around PCVs. we tried sending back ice cream that one of our homestay people didn't like and the waitor said she couldn't not like it because she was from the village and wouldn't know what ice cream was. dick. and some americans just turned their head and had that awkward situation look that I always saw back home.
getting back was just as fun as getting there. the girls we met tried to haggle their taxi driver to get back to their homestays. they know french, none of us did so we just let the guy fuck us over. and he did. first wrong decision was taking the scenic route. we ended up waiting 20 minutes for a herd of hundreds of cattle that was blocking the street. it was really loud, like the night was bellowing under the final weight of the day's departure. after we crossed the river and were back en brousse the driver hooked us up with some tunes. rod stewart - young turks. I don't even like rod stewart, but it was appropriate, and strangely surreal. and almost any music sounds good once you're without it. I even like kitkat bars now. soon after the tire blew out and the driver wanted to collect the full amount. one of us flipped and the driver changed his demeanor. I guess it was about time. he agreed to pay a sumatra out of the full fare we owed for the rest of the trip. our local wasn't helping too much; malians get tired and they wear they're disinterest obviously, oh and apparently they don't travel with spares. so we paid in full and hopped on the next sumatra which only took us to kobilakoro. we had to hoof the next seven or eight km, which wasn't bad under moonlight, but it certainly worked off any buzz we might've taken to sleep with us.
so I had bacterial dysentery earlier this week. of course, it happens as soon as we're back in tubaniso, or "dove house" or PC training center outside of bamako. I really don't like this place, I like my homestay. miss it even. the dysentery is just no eating and lots of nyegenning. no energy and losing weight, I'm down 15 pounds from when I got to Mali. it's not a lot compared to some others, but it's certainly a 15 I can't afford to lose. both of my roommates here are at the med office in bamako. now I have a viral infection that gets to the muscles and cartilage in my chest. the doc couldn't do anything for it, she said to just ride it out. it's pretty painful to breath and I've been fevering 102+ for the past couple of days. I can feel it subsiding now though, and we visit our permanent site tomorrow. once again I'm fine upon leaving the training center. and this will be the last about sickness talk. everyone's getting it and more will come. it's a drag really, but either shut up or die. haha just kidding. but not really. okay I'm out.
next is word from permanent site visit...
I forgot to tell what a nyegen (knee egg en) was in the previous post. it's the unroofed area that you shit in with maybe a ten inch cement hole in the ground. the hole goes to a big ditch underneath the nyegen that, if you're ever brave enough to look down into, you'll see everyone's waste getting turned and churned by fly larvae and worms. you can even hear it. if you're lucky it'll have a lid for cover, I'm not so. when I use it all the flies swarm up from the hole and try to suck face or find a home in my ear or up my nose or on my toes. anywhere flies bother the hell out of me, I assume all were just having fun in the nyegen. so anyway nyegen water is basically everything you do in the nyegen that doesn't go into the pit. pissing, bathing, whatever else (greywater) goes out a drainage hole and into the streets. this is what we were walking in.
people were almost getting run over, holding onto the sumatra and being dragged down the street. we walked for maybe 45 minutes, so we must've been dropped off at least three miles from the restaurant. we took a soundougouba local with us which I think helped a lot. instead of being driven everywhere he just kept asking the way every couple hundred meters. the people I was with were worried that he didn't know where he was going, or that it would take too long. he saved us money at least, which turned out to be pretty significant considering how relatively expensive dinner was. a JD single was 3500 cfa (~$7) and the personal pizzas were at least 5000 cfa. granted, for me, nothing beats american whiskey and hot greasy cheese, but the cost hurt when we've been living off nickles and dimes. I mean the pocket double-shot whiskeys are 300 cfa. that's 60 cents. three or four bucks and you're as golden as your drink. luckily one of the PCTs we met there brought a few with her, so we ended up sharing them. we drank and ate and smoked cigarettes and played pool at this place I don't really want to go back to even though it's where all the PC scandal goes down. or so we heard. the air was snobby, even around PCVs. we tried sending back ice cream that one of our homestay people didn't like and the waitor said she couldn't not like it because she was from the village and wouldn't know what ice cream was. dick. and some americans just turned their head and had that awkward situation look that I always saw back home.
getting back was just as fun as getting there. the girls we met tried to haggle their taxi driver to get back to their homestays. they know french, none of us did so we just let the guy fuck us over. and he did. first wrong decision was taking the scenic route. we ended up waiting 20 minutes for a herd of hundreds of cattle that was blocking the street. it was really loud, like the night was bellowing under the final weight of the day's departure. after we crossed the river and were back en brousse the driver hooked us up with some tunes. rod stewart - young turks. I don't even like rod stewart, but it was appropriate, and strangely surreal. and almost any music sounds good once you're without it. I even like kitkat bars now. soon after the tire blew out and the driver wanted to collect the full amount. one of us flipped and the driver changed his demeanor. I guess it was about time. he agreed to pay a sumatra out of the full fare we owed for the rest of the trip. our local wasn't helping too much; malians get tired and they wear they're disinterest obviously, oh and apparently they don't travel with spares. so we paid in full and hopped on the next sumatra which only took us to kobilakoro. we had to hoof the next seven or eight km, which wasn't bad under moonlight, but it certainly worked off any buzz we might've taken to sleep with us.
so I had bacterial dysentery earlier this week. of course, it happens as soon as we're back in tubaniso, or "dove house" or PC training center outside of bamako. I really don't like this place, I like my homestay. miss it even. the dysentery is just no eating and lots of nyegenning. no energy and losing weight, I'm down 15 pounds from when I got to Mali. it's not a lot compared to some others, but it's certainly a 15 I can't afford to lose. both of my roommates here are at the med office in bamako. now I have a viral infection that gets to the muscles and cartilage in my chest. the doc couldn't do anything for it, she said to just ride it out. it's pretty painful to breath and I've been fevering 102+ for the past couple of days. I can feel it subsiding now though, and we visit our permanent site tomorrow. once again I'm fine upon leaving the training center. and this will be the last about sickness talk. everyone's getting it and more will come. it's a drag really, but either shut up or die. haha just kidding. but not really. okay I'm out.
next is word from permanent site visit...
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
introduction
what to write...
I like it here, but I don't think I've processed things enough to have a that sort of feeling. so I'll stay factual.
malaria prophylaxis kicked my ass the first week. i was depressed and the doc said if it didn't turn around then I should consider ETing (early termination). I was fine the next day. the meds gave me wicked dreams too, quite a treat that's been. one was about meeting missing links to monkeys, bugs, fish and flowers, another was about a slime princess at the foot of an ancient s. american civilization. and they're all so vivid. once we were out at homestay everything was gravy. my new name is tumani (two mon ee) sidibe but the streets call me cekaceka. It means big boss or womanizer or the one who speaks about nothing. I didn't take more than a day to get used to the food and lack of amenities. breakfast is always instant coffee or tea, french bread and seri (like oatmeal or cream of wheat). they put lots of sugar in their hot drinks, it took a few mornings to get my uncle to put the sugar for my coffee into the seri. i told him black unsweetened coffee and sweet warm cereal is breakfast ameriki. once a week I get about a dozen hard boiled eggs. lunch is usually rice with sauce and some type of meat. the best is a red garlic and onion sauce with hot peppers and beef. I always look forward to lunch. morning language session is a drag... school's halfway around the world and I'll still hate it. I prefer to do my learning during nighttime chats around the village. after second session I'll get together with other PCTs and kill time. we go to baguineda camp for cold drinks or we climb the rock ridges around town. It's pretty up there... we can see our whole village of soundougouba, the treeline along the river and a whole lotta sky. it's just bigger here, like the earth inverted. I'm usually back with my family around dusk for dinner and chatting. dinner's been lots of things... toh, macaroni (mali fast food), meat and potatoes, cucumber and tomato salad. most of this isn't what they eat, we get hooked up because the PC pays them to feed us. after dinner I study with my uncle or walk around town with a local friend and talk it up with other concessions. we'll play mali cards or drink tea or just work on bambara. a few times we've made it to the bar in b camp, but it only serves malty beer. the bar down the street from the training site has pocket gin shots, which are more conducive to my good night. but the good thing about walking home from b camp is misi sogo for 4th meal - smoked and chopped beef leg tossed with powdered salt and onions.
now food aside and onto the juicy stuff... there are countless firsts you experience when living en brousse, many of which are easy subjects for nasty bathroom humor. the first first that comes to mind is happening to see someone relieve himself while I was eating lunch. not quite the old in n out. there is no toilet paper, so it will be the first time you wipe your ass with your hand. i hope. if your concession doesn't differentiate, you'll shower in the same unroofed area that you shit. and you'll shake hands with people who don't wash their hands after... you get the idea. I guess my water sanitation sector has a broader range of issues to address than I initially anticipated. soap, along with frogs and having your picture taken, are considered bad luck around most parts of mali. there's also lots of boobies and naked kids, which is all good. the first day at homestay some lady pushing 100 walked up shirtless and shook my hand with this wiry toothless grin. it only takes once to get used to these things, I got broken in to that one pretty quickly. the wake up calls are a different story. if I manage to sleep through the 5 am loudspeaker call to prayer (mali is mostly muslim) and then half an hour later the retarded rooster crowing right outside my door, I have to put up with my uncle making sure I have all the time in the god forsaken early morning to get ready for the day. whatever at least I can sleep at night, many others struggle with the heat still. I guess I have my arizona junior year landlord to thank for that. you guys know, a year and a half of 100+ degrees with no a/c. even though you fuckers pussied out and got personal window units. all in preparation...
the women are gradually becoming beautiful. full figured and amazingly graceful, and if you smile they smile. but I'm digging blonde hair and fair skin. and getting hit by everything here. I should've guessed it would take more than myself to take this in as best I can.
soso likes you because you smell so sweet.
more to come people.
I like it here, but I don't think I've processed things enough to have a that sort of feeling. so I'll stay factual.
malaria prophylaxis kicked my ass the first week. i was depressed and the doc said if it didn't turn around then I should consider ETing (early termination). I was fine the next day. the meds gave me wicked dreams too, quite a treat that's been. one was about meeting missing links to monkeys, bugs, fish and flowers, another was about a slime princess at the foot of an ancient s. american civilization. and they're all so vivid. once we were out at homestay everything was gravy. my new name is tumani (two mon ee) sidibe but the streets call me cekaceka. It means big boss or womanizer or the one who speaks about nothing. I didn't take more than a day to get used to the food and lack of amenities. breakfast is always instant coffee or tea, french bread and seri (like oatmeal or cream of wheat). they put lots of sugar in their hot drinks, it took a few mornings to get my uncle to put the sugar for my coffee into the seri. i told him black unsweetened coffee and sweet warm cereal is breakfast ameriki. once a week I get about a dozen hard boiled eggs. lunch is usually rice with sauce and some type of meat. the best is a red garlic and onion sauce with hot peppers and beef. I always look forward to lunch. morning language session is a drag... school's halfway around the world and I'll still hate it. I prefer to do my learning during nighttime chats around the village. after second session I'll get together with other PCTs and kill time. we go to baguineda camp for cold drinks or we climb the rock ridges around town. It's pretty up there... we can see our whole village of soundougouba, the treeline along the river and a whole lotta sky. it's just bigger here, like the earth inverted. I'm usually back with my family around dusk for dinner and chatting. dinner's been lots of things... toh, macaroni (mali fast food), meat and potatoes, cucumber and tomato salad. most of this isn't what they eat, we get hooked up because the PC pays them to feed us. after dinner I study with my uncle or walk around town with a local friend and talk it up with other concessions. we'll play mali cards or drink tea or just work on bambara. a few times we've made it to the bar in b camp, but it only serves malty beer. the bar down the street from the training site has pocket gin shots, which are more conducive to my good night. but the good thing about walking home from b camp is misi sogo for 4th meal - smoked and chopped beef leg tossed with powdered salt and onions.
now food aside and onto the juicy stuff... there are countless firsts you experience when living en brousse, many of which are easy subjects for nasty bathroom humor. the first first that comes to mind is happening to see someone relieve himself while I was eating lunch. not quite the old in n out. there is no toilet paper, so it will be the first time you wipe your ass with your hand. i hope. if your concession doesn't differentiate, you'll shower in the same unroofed area that you shit. and you'll shake hands with people who don't wash their hands after... you get the idea. I guess my water sanitation sector has a broader range of issues to address than I initially anticipated. soap, along with frogs and having your picture taken, are considered bad luck around most parts of mali. there's also lots of boobies and naked kids, which is all good. the first day at homestay some lady pushing 100 walked up shirtless and shook my hand with this wiry toothless grin. it only takes once to get used to these things, I got broken in to that one pretty quickly. the wake up calls are a different story. if I manage to sleep through the 5 am loudspeaker call to prayer (mali is mostly muslim) and then half an hour later the retarded rooster crowing right outside my door, I have to put up with my uncle making sure I have all the time in the god forsaken early morning to get ready for the day. whatever at least I can sleep at night, many others struggle with the heat still. I guess I have my arizona junior year landlord to thank for that. you guys know, a year and a half of 100+ degrees with no a/c. even though you fuckers pussied out and got personal window units. all in preparation...
the women are gradually becoming beautiful. full figured and amazingly graceful, and if you smile they smile. but I'm digging blonde hair and fair skin. and getting hit by everything here. I should've guessed it would take more than myself to take this in as best I can.
soso likes you because you smell so sweet.
more to come people.
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