Enjoying The Journey

Bubba holding our new chicken
Joe enjoying the firepit and "patio" Bubba and Joe built
Joe and Bubba beginning construction on the patio and firepit
The Dishwasher broke so Ashley had to wash these dishes by hand
Bubba watering an onion field
Umar and Joe at Umar's onion field
Guava season...my new candy

A Night on the River

So, we spent last night hanging out with our fellow volunteers in Mopti.  We started the night with a drink at Restaurant Bozo.  While enjoying the evening, a boat man approached us and asked if we wanted to take a Pinace (boat) trip across the Niger to a fishing village on the other side.  After our friend Stacy negotiated, in Bambara, the price we decided that we could hardly say no, as the price was $5 usd total for the 6 of us to take the sunset cruise. 
Having a drink at Restaurant Bozo
Bubba getting a lesson on how to wear his scarf properly
Getting on the pinace
What a beautiful sunset

Bubba just enjoying the journey

Enjoying the sunset from our pinace

Boat trip

Sunset over the Niger...gotta love that

Also, I just got this video to upload, this is the woman in our village pounding millet, on the day of Tabaski.  Dogon woman work hard!

Bubba is in town

OK, so we had two big events happen recently, first, Bubba arrived in Mali safely, and secondly our kitten has become a mouse killer.  Bubba arrived in Mali eight days ago and already we have done so much.  We met him in Bamako, which meant that we got to eat pizza and ice cream, and then we all headed back to our village (12 hour bus ride and a 30 minute bike ride).  We arrived in our village just in time to celebrate Tabaski, one of the biggest Muslim celebrations each year.  

Tabaski "Festival of Sacrifice" is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God. However, God provided a ram in place once Ibrahim demonstrated his willingness to follow God's commands.  Tabaski annually falls on the 10th day of the month of Dhul Hijja of the lunar Islamic calendar. The festivities last for three days or more depending on the country. Tabaski occurs the day after the pilgrims conducting Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from Mount Arafat. It happens to be approximately 70 days after the end of the month of Ramadan.

During Tabaski everyone in our village wore there best outfits and every man slaughters one sheep for every one of his wife.   The celebration started with all the men (including Bubba and Joe) walking out to the ridge on the East side of our village.  All the prayer mats from the Mosque were laid out on the ground and we all knelt and prayed toward Mecca.  It was amazing to take part in such a traditional ceremony.

When the prayer ended all the young men in the village shot off old black powdered riffles (they look like old civil war muskets).  The men then went to the house of each village elder and shot off the riffles...I am not sure of the meaning but it is loud and dangerous (I am sure no one has had gun safety!).  

After the prayer and guns,  Bubba and Joe went around and watched as all the sheep in the village were slaughtered.  It was a crazy couple of days.   

Ashley and Bubba playing a new card game (Thanks Ingrid and Jon!)

Ashley all ready to party at the Tabaski festival

Bubba on his way to the "bathroom" to take his first bucket bath
Yes, a basket full of meat for the Tabaski celebration
Joe and Bubba looking like African studs
Bubba getting in goat killing mode

I (Joe) gave our kitten a little training one night on how to kill mice and the next morning we woke up to two dead mice on the floor.  We officially have a mouse killer!

A Great Friend...We Will Miss You

We are saddened because Christina Nardone, our good friend, someone who brightened our day from the moment we met her, was tragically killed on Tuesday, December 2.  Christina made our time in Mali more delightful, always welcomed us with open arms, and had a perpetual smile that made each day a little brighter.  She was an instant friend to everyone and Bandiagara will not be the same with her gone.  We want to celebrate her life by continuing our service in Mali in the same spirit Christina embodied, of wanting to have a lasting positive impact on the lives of the people in Dogon Country.  

Bandiagara : Tragic Collapse of a Water Tower
 
An American was killed last Tuesday in the collapse of a water tower. The accident occurred in the village of Kokodiougou, 15 kilometers north of Bandiagara in the rural commune of Doucoumbo.

The victim, Cristina Nardone, was the coordinator of the Global System Tourism Alliance (GSTA). Her compatriot, Brenda Adelson was injured in the accident. Christina Nardone was a member of the Federation of Traditional Medicine in partnership with the Regional Center for Traditional Medicine in Bandiagara.

The construction work on the water tower was finished last Monday. The structure measured 4 meters in height; with 2 meters being for the pillars and 2 meters for the portion holding the water. The water tower was entirely constructed of cement.

The day after the construction work was completed, the two women visited the site, along with the builder, to visit the water tower, which was to water medicinal plants in the botanical garden managed by the "Federation of Traditional Therapy" of Bandiagara (FATTB) in the village.

Upon arriving at the site, Christina Nardone asked the builder to fill the basin with water.

Several minutes after the water tower was filled, it collapsed on the two women who were unfortunately under it.

The collapse led to the sudden death of Cristina Nardone. With respect to Brenda Adelson, she suffered an open fracture on her left leg.

As soon as they were alerted, police agents from Bandiagara arrived on the scene and the victims were immediately transported to Mopti.

The builder of the water tower is currently being held at the gendarmerie.

The entire population of Bandiagara prays the victim will rest in peace and for the rapid restablishment of Brenda Adelson. The two women were true friends of the Circle of Bandiagara.

O. GUINDO
AMAP-Bandiagara

A view of Mali from my camera

My friend Umar, Ashley and I visited a village near ours and Umar bought a chicken and he is bringing it home.

We visited Umar's garden and he gave us some "Ku" which is like a sweet potato (the little red root) and then a "Angie Komo" which is the delicious yellow/green thing.
Ashley standing next to the "Monkey Crow" used to, similar to it's relative the scare crow, scare away Monkeys from Umar's garden.
Joe walking his bike over a rocky area while watching the cattle drink.
Biking through the bush.
Our new cat...we named him Dogon.
About 15 guys from our village came over last Sunday and built us this new hanger - it keeps us cooler during the day.
Oumou and Ashley
Oumou carrying fire wood she gathered in the bush to be taken to market and sold (Oumou is 11 years old)
Amie carrying Joe's "Nalgene" around on her head...she does it cause Joe laughs every time she does -  she can walk miles with it on her head.
Joe's new best friend - Joe is allergic to cats but Ashley is more allergic to mice.
We bought a foam mattress to sleep on so I had to bike three miles with it tied to my bike.
Joe went to harvest millet with these folks from our village.

Oumou carrying millet from the field to the donkey cart to be taken to village to be put in the silos for storage and eaten throughout the year.

What has been going on...

10/30 - We were mesmorized by a meteor that flew over our house. It brought with it a "spotlight" like light followed by the ground trembling and a thouderous "boom". It is a little scary when a flaming ball of fire flys over your house - seemed kind of apocolyptic.



10/31 - Celebrated a Halloween with carmelled apples and no costumes.



11/1 - Had a West African mexican dinner - we walked away misserably full.



11/4 - We watched the US elections from a satelite TV at a hotel in Sevare (the nearest somewhat large town near our village). Obama wins, Republicans loose many House and Senate seats. Joe stayed up until 6am watching results come in on the computer.



11/11 - Joe went to the fields on a donkey cart to help harvest millet - he came home red as a tomato and covered in dirt.



11/12 - We were biking into town and saw a Chameleon cross the road - we see a lot of Geckos but never chamelons - we stopped and watched it with some locals from our village. As we were watching the Chameleon, a goat peed on Joe's foot!



11/13 - Started our French tutoring with two local teachers. Joe went to the fields again, this time to harvest onions (and with a bottle of sunscreen).



11/19 - Joe biked 70km to a town north of our village called Kendie to check out their market. He was the only white person in town and was instantly surounded by 50 children. After five hours of biking he came home dead dog tired.

Headed into month 5...

Just a note to everyone, Mali has changed its cell phone service and added a 7 to both Joe and I's telephone numbers.  So if you have our numbers plugged into your phones don't forget to update them.  I have updated the numbers on the blog, so they are correct.

We are heading back to our home today after a long time away.  We were fortunate enough to get time away for Halloween and Election Night "08.  We must get back to business.  There is Donoso to learn, kids to play guitar with, Toa to eat, monkeys to see, and a world to change.  

We love you all.   Keep checking our blog and commenting.  It keeps us going and motivated.  

This is our pie chart that is hanging in our house, which also keeps us going.  It is sectioned out by month so we can color in each month as we go.  We get to color in our 4th month when we return home.  Yeah for us!  Headed into month 5...

 

Yan Leye Budu Jooe

10-23-08: Joe saw his first monkeys in Mali while taking a bike ride on the dirt road between our village and the one North of us. He saw 6 small monkeys crossing the road about 100 yards in front of him.

10-27-08: Ashley has her first bike crash, but because she was abiding by Peace Corps rules, she was wearing her helmet so only ended up with a few bruises and a headache.

10-31-08: Ashley had her first monkey sighting, only she saw her monkey in the post office!
__________________________________________________________

Mali is largely a Muslim country, with 90% of the population practicing Sunni Islam. With the practice of Islam comes the practice of polygamy (you are allowed up to four wives). Each Peace Corps volunteer has a homologue, which is french for the word counterpart, basically the person Peace Corps sets you up with to work on integration into your village, development projects, language training, and is your all-around Peace Corps appointed buddy. Our homologue is 34 years old and his name is Umar Gjibia and he is a really great guy. He can speak 5 different languages; French, Donoso, Toroso, Bambara, and Fulfulde. Umar has an eighth grade education, which for Mali means he is one of the most educated people in our village. Umar has two wives, Ramatu and Jeneba. I wonder what having multiple wives is like, not because having multiple wives is something I desire, but because it is culturally different from the way I was brought up to view marriage. I wonder if the wives are friends? Or do they despise each other? Are the wives always in competition to see who can serve the husband the best to win the favored wife status? It seems very complicated. I know from experience that one wife is complicated I cant imagine the complication or the cost of two wives -- two wives means you have to buy 30 purses a year instead of 15 and you have to afford 8 pairs of shoes a month instead of 4.

The cost---that is my way of joking back with the Malians when they tell me I need a second wife, a Malian second wife that is. One day at work the men were haggling me about having only one wife so I said in Donoso, "Ameriki Yana Turu," in America you only get one wife(one wife at a time would be more accurate). But they kept hounding me saying I needed a second wife. So I replied a second time with, "Yana leye budu jooe," two wives is a lot of money and we all laughed and the subject was changed.

Today Ashley and I ate breakfast with Umar. I forgot to mention that in Mali that every wife has her own house. So we went to Umar's wife Jeneba's house and ate Funion (similar to cream of wheat) and after we finished at Jeneba's we walked over to Umar's other wives house, Ramatu, and drank Puno ( a millet porridge with sugar).

I wonder what it is like to have two wives.

A Week of Donoso-did us a world of good!

Joe and I live in a Dogon village. The people here have a unique culture different from the other Malians in the country. Dogons have not yet(or very little) been influenced by the western world.

When we were in training Joe and I both were taught French. French is the working language here. In schools children are taught in French and in their local dialect. But beings only 29% of the country is literate, knowing French only helps us at work. (Because French is not spoken in the home and only learned in school). In our village 2 out of 800 people speak French(only speak, not read or write). So needless to say French is useless where we live. After we made a few phone calls, Peace Corps decided to send us out a Donoso tutor for one week, 30 hours of tutoring.

SIDE NOTE: For those of you who know Joe well, Imagine him living in a village for 5 weeks and not able to talk someones ear off---I guess I got the brunt of Joe's uncanny ability to talk since he had no other choice than to talk to me, and I had not other choice than to listen.

Last week was out BIG Donoso week-and it did us a world of good. We sat in a mud structure with a thatched roof made of millet stalks with a make-shift chalkboard (that was half-broken)and in 95F heat and took in all the Donoso we could...We also managed to eat quite a few peanuts too(it is harvest time here so everyone is always giving us peanuts!)

We learned everything from greetings, to transportation and market lingo to the phrase, "Snakes scare me."Another useful phrase we learned was, "In America, American men only have one wife," Malians are polygamists so they are always trying to give Joe another wife.

Anyway, we took in a lot of language and were exhausted when the week was done. The village is quite pleased with our progress and with that they all make a joint effort to help us with our language any time they can.
Knowing the local language is all part of the integration process. People respect you more when you speak their language (and you get better deals at the market if you know the local language, and you know how us Martin women love bargains).

Joe and I have made a few goals for ourselves so that we are diligent in our studies. We are to learn one Donoso verb a day and it's conjugations. With that we have two questions and one blessing that we practice each week by walking around our village every morning and greeting folks using the questions and blessings(blessings and greetings are HUGE here if you don't say them to everyone you encounter, it is considered very rude).

So cheers to the Dogons, Donoso, our tutor and to our goals. Donoso will come slowly but surely.

Pinanni Segeremo(until next time),

Yamba and Ambobu

Joe playing a little dancing music for some of the kids in the village

First three weeks of our village (in review)

All our stuff loaded on the SUV ready to transport it to our village
A camel eating on the side of the road as we biked by to our village
A mosque in a neighboring village to ours
Ashley sweeping the house
Another cool mosque
Traveling to a remote village below the Cliffs of Bandiagara
A lizard on the screen of our door
Kids hauling water to our house from the pumb which is a 1 km walk in each direction
Some kids who have gathered wood to take back to their house to be used for cooking fuel
Some young girls in our village looking into our house (nothing much exciting is happening inside)

Girls from our village who have come over to entertain us with a dance