My Parent's Visit (1 of 2)

The following is the first of two posts about my parents' visit to Dakar and Kenieba, written by my mom. Enjoy!

Visit to West Africa, January 2011, to visit Billy, PCV in Kenieba, Mali

By Nancy Budd

Mali, the largest country in West Africa, is bordered by seven other states: Algeria lies to the north and northeast, Niger to the east, Burkina Faso to the southeast and the Ivory Coast, to the south. To the west are Senegal and Mauritania. We flew into Dakar, Senegal and spent a few days there. After exploring Dakar and visiting Gorée Island and the city markets we hired a driver to take us across Senegal. These photos are from our visit to Gorée Island.

It took a day and a half to make it to the border of Mali. We crossed the Falemé river from Senegal to Mali in a small dug out wooden boat.

Although Mali is today one of the poorest countries in the world it is known as a jewel in the crown of West Africa; it is culturally and historically rich, but economically poor. We were warmly welcomed, but I was surprised by the "Third World" infrastructure and conditions in the smaller towns.

Our introduction to the people of Kenieba started with Billy’s host family. They were amazing. Doh, Billy’s host father works at the gold mine and comes home every few weeks. We were able to visit him in the village at the mine.

Zakariyah, Billy host brother, is 12 and is very attached to Billy. He is a very smart young man who is curious and eager to learn. Billy is teaching him English and keyboarding. Zak loves to “hang out at Younoussa’s house”.

Tenin, Billy’s host sister, was very gracious and particularly enjoyed watching Bill try to eat with his hands. Mariam, best friends of Billy’s host family, is the mother figure who cooks and provides a stable home. Her son Levieux is a precocious and adorable four year old who loves to play the drum and smile. Here is a picture of Zak, Tenin and Levieux on the front porch of their house.

Unfortunately Billy’s host mom died in childbirth just weeks before we arrived. We were very sad that we did not get the chance to meet her; Billy could not say enough wonderful things about her. Billy’s PCV house is next door to his host family’s home. It is much larger than I thought it was going to be and he seems to have what he needs to live.

There are no toilets or running water. His African toilet (the photo above) is a hole in the ground with two cinderblocks and his “shower” is a bucket with water that he has heated on his gas burner and a cup to throw the water over his head. He does have a satellite dish that the Peace Corps installed a few weeks ago. I call it ET, so he can phone home.

To me, the best adjective that describes Kenieba is colorful. It was one of the most colorful places I have ever visited, full of wonderful people, great varieties of cultures and languages, and strong traditions of art and music. The streets are filled with people in shimmering embroidered colorful garments. The flowing robes or grand boubou of the men and the long wraparound skirt or boubou and matching headscarf of the women make quite an impression. Most women carry things on their head and a baby on their back. The babies are carried piggyback style then wrapped in a cloth that is pulled around their mother’s body and knotted around her front. It creates a snug sling like seat for the child. From the front you can only see the child’s feet sticking out from its mothers sides.

We found music everywhere we went in Mali. The Sikoloton Shea Butter cooperative that Billy is working with gave us a festival with hours of singing, dancing, and playing traditional instruments. The women and the school children danced to the drummer’s music in their beautiful colored outfits. It was a site to behold. As with most celebrations some animal must give if its life, it was a sheep in this case. The sheep was presented to us as a gift and then taken, slaughtered and cooked for our lunch.

Celebrating Christmas and Ringing In the New Year

First, thanks to my friends and family for the kind messages you've sent me about my host mom's death. It was a difficult few weeks, but spending Christmas with PCV friends and New Year's with Malian friends made for a positive end to the year.

For Christmas, I travelled up to Manantali, a town on the Bafing river. A huge hydroelectric dam was built there in the 1990's which supplies power to Mali, Senegal and Mauritania. It is a quirky town because there is a typical Malian village on one end, with subsistence farmers living in mud huts, but then there are dam workers who live in a gated community on the other end of town. The gated community reminds me of what a circa 1980's run down Florida retirement community would look like, with tennis courts, a supermarket-type store, and bank and post office. Since the hydroelectric dam is right there, the entire town is supplied with cheap electricity, so even the smallest mud huts have power.

There is a Peace Corps house in Kenieba which is located between these opposite ends of Manantali. The house consists of two huge cement huts with straw roofs and is ideally located in a tranquil spot next to the river. Spending a few days in Manantali is a genuine escape from the heat and dryness found in the rest of Mali.

The Christmas party was nice and relaxing. It was great to catch up with fellow second-year volunteers and meet some of the volunteers who arrived last year. The volunteers who are based out of Manantali did a great job hosting us and organizing our meals. We roasted three pigs for Christmas dinner! Though it was tough to be away from home for now the third Christmas in a row, it was comforting to know I would be home next year. Also, I was not happy to miss the huge snowstorm that dumped two feet of snow in the northeast!

The river as seen from the Peace Corps house

Down at water level

Hippos! Luckily they like to stay on the other side of the river.
Did you know hippos are the deadliest animals in Africa?

The Peace Corps house in Manantali

The hydroelectric dam

The day after Christmas we hiked above the dam to check out the lake. It is a huge body of water, stretching across an area of 180 square miles (I did some research on Wikipedia... it's more than twice the size of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and about the same size as Lake Tahoe). When the river was dammed, the lake flooded more than 50 villages and displaced about 12,000 people.

Lake Manantali

These trees are bare except for these beautiful red flowers that bloom this time of the year

I traveled back to Kenieba after Christmas and celebrated New Year's with some of my friends there. New Year's is actually a pretty big holiday here, meaning another chance to eat good food. If they can afford it, Malians like to eat chicken for the New Year's feast. One of my neighbor's invited me to eat dinner with them, so I bought a chicken and we enjoyed it with french fries and fried plantains. I stayed up until midnight and got to see fireworks going off all over town.

Here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2011!

Thanksgiving & Waterfalls

For Thanksgiving this year, I travelled to the Sikasso region in southern Mali, where the Sikasso PCVs organized a big American thanksgiving feast and party. It was a big gathering as more than 60 volunteers came. It was great to catch up with friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in a year. We ate lots of good food for Thanksgiving dinner, including turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and salad, and we enjoyed some pumpkin and apple pie for dessert.

We had a pool party and Mexican dinner on Friday, and then headed out to some waterfalls for a camping trip over the weekend. The waterfalls were really cool to see and we had a great time camping by them, eating tons of guacamole and hanging out around the campfire.

This is the transport we took out to the waterfalls, a beat-up Peugeot 504. It's called a sept-place in Senegal because seven people travel in it with a driver, but in Guinea and Mali they cram as many people into them as they can. I think we fit 12 people into the one I was in. It's definitely not a comfortable ride! This car has seen better days.

One of the many stops to fill up for gas or put some other unknown fluid into the makeshift engine.

The waterfalls.

Our campsite. Looks like an REI commercial!

Tabaski 2010

On November 17th, Muslims around the world celebrated a holiday called Eid al-Adha, or Tabaski in West Africa. It’s also known as Seliba, which means big prayer in Bambara. Here’s a short summary from Wikipedia:

Eid al-Adha is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead. The meat is divided into three parts to be distributed to others. The family retains one third of the share, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor & needy.

This is the time when Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca, which they are supposed to do at least once in their lives if they can afford the trip. Here in Mali, Tabaski is the biggest holiday of the year. Families save up for the big feast and buy a sheep to sacrifice if they can afford it. About a week before the holiday, women started to braid each other’s hair, kids were fitted for nice new clothes, and animal herders came into town to sell their sheep. Families save up a lot of money for Tabaski to buy a sheep to sacrifice for the holiday feast.

This year my host family was fortunate enough to buy two sheep for the feast. Each day, my host brother would bring the sheep over and tie them up in my yard during the day. It was nice to have some sheep around for a week, since they ate all the overgrown grass and weeds that took over my yard during the rainy season. I didn’t get warmed up to the sheep since their days were numbered, but I did give them names: Taba and Ski. My host brother thought that was hilarious.

On the morning of Tabaski, all of the men in town went to a central location and all prayed together as the imam led the service. Once the imam had sacrificed his sheep, everyone could go home and do the same. Our sacrifice was especially graphic this year with two sheep to kill. As with tradition, my host dad delivered some of the sheep to an old woman in town, and also gave some to our neighbors.

The feast was plentiful; we ate two big courses during the day and another at night. As with every Malian meal, we all ate together, with our hands, in a shared bowl. We had salad, liver, fries, and bread for the first course, and Moroccan cous cous with onions for the second course. At night we had more meat and potatoes in an oily sauce. I haven’t been that stuffed in a long time!

Cinquantenaire

Mali celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence, the “cinquantenaire”, on the 22nd of September. There was a big military parade (like the Bastille Day parade down the Champs Elysees in France) and huge choreographed show in Bamako which was broadcast on the national TV station. Out in Kenieba, there was also a celebration but it was poorly planned and not nearly as exciting. The women in the shea butter association invited me to walk with them in the Independence Day “parade”. They had been talking about the parade since July, and how we would give the mayor, prefet and other town leaders some of their shea butter as a gift.

Me with some of the shea butter association members

One of the members holding some of the shea butter they made

When I hear that there’s going to be a parade, especially one on Independence Day, I think of groups of people walking down the main road wearing the national colors and spectators watching and cheering. The parade in Kenieba was more like a rally, and could be best described as chaotic. It took place in the big square in the center of town, where I at least a thousand people were crowded around the perimeter to watch some dignitaries speak. You couldn’t hear them over all the noise of the crowd, and definitely not over the extremely loud rifle shots that would randomly go off every few minutes. When it came time to line up for the “parade”, we walked outside the square and crammed together like sardines even though there was nobody behind us. When it finally became our turn to walk in the square, we walked at a brisk pace to the VIPs and then walked right past them. We only realized after we passed the VIP tent that we didn’t give them their gift! So some of us walked against the parade to deliver the shea butter to the VIPs.

Independence Day ceremony in Kenieba

The VIP tent

After the parade I had a delicious feast with one of my neighbors (fried rice with meat, sweet potatoes and other vegetables, and fried plantains), and then went up to watch a soccer game that was apparently the championship game of a tournament that had been going on between different teams in Kenieba. It was surprisingly well organized with each team sporting matching uniforms, and there were referees and linesmen officiating. The field is another story it’s all dirt, with some dried up drainage streams that make it uneven on one entire side of the field. So the game was mostly played on one side of the field. After 90 minutes the game was 0-0, but there were some good shots and it was pretty entertaining. The game took place at the end of the day and the sun was going down so they couldn't play overtime. They finished the game two days later.

These photos of the soccer game were taken with my cell phone camera, so they're not the best quality:

In the end, it was nice to be a part of the 50^th anniversary celebration, which was certainly a moment of national pride. After all, celebrations like this only happen once every 50 years!

Tut tut, looks like rain

Rainy season is in full swing here in Mali. August is the wettest month of the year, and that was definitely the case in Kenieba this year. There’s a heavy downpour just about every day, and the road outside my house becomes a fast-flowing stream, at least until the sun comes out again. It’s been a challenge to keep my yard cleared of weeds and other fast-growing plants. I joked with my neighbors that I live in a forest, because I couldn't keep up with pulling out all the weeds! A bunch of kids helped me finally clear all of it out, but I still find myself weeding a few times a week. Another not-so-fun part of rainy season is the mosquitoes, which are a nuisance even in the middle of the day. Most of the year there are no mosquitoes in Kenieba, but they are out with a vengeance during rainy season.

The little footpaths around town are all grown in now… any open space has become a field of peanuts, corn or millet stalks. The cliffs around Kenieba are lush with vegetation, and there are even little waterfalls popping out from the cliff's edge. The weather is nice and comfortable most days, and I’ve even felt cold after a big monsoon comes through! I’ve gotten back in the habit of brewing tea in the morning, and even heat up some water for a nice warm bucket bath at the end of the day.

Eighty new Peace Corps Mali volunteers finished their training last week. There are a bunch of new volunteers in my region, including one who will be working in Kenieba. She had a great site visit in August, and I enjoyed showing her around, introducing her to my friends and work partners. Being her guide around Kenieba really put things into perspective for me, in terms of how well integrated I have become in the community, not only with the women's association and artisans I've done some work with, but my neighbors and other people I've gotten to know over the last year.

During the past few weeks most Malians have been celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. I'm sharing a link to The Big Picture blog again this year since it does a great job of illustrating how Ramadan is celebrated in different cultures all over the world. According to the Big Picture:

Muslim men and women across the world are currently observing Ramadan, a month long celebration of self-purification and restraint. During Ramadan, the Muslim community fast, abstaining from food, drink, smoking and sex between sunrise and sunset. Muslims break their fast after sunset with an evening meal called Iftar, where a date is the first thing eaten followed by a traditional meal. During this time, Muslims are also encouraged to read the entire Quran, to give freely to those in need, and strengthen their ties to God through prayer. The goal of the fast is to teach humility, patience and sacrifice, and to ask forgiveness, practice self-restraint, and pray for guidance in the future. This year, Ramadan will continue until Thursday, September 9th.

In Mali, people are awake before dawn to eat a big meal and drink enough water to last them through the day. Though they say they are used to fasting during the month of Ramadan every year, it’s still a struggle for some people to make it through the day. They become agitated and anxious in the late afternoon, when they begin the countdown to sunset, when the imam signals over the loudspeaker that they can break the fast. Typically their evening break-fast is a sweet porridge called ceri. Then they head to the mosque for a special Ramadan prayer, and eat a larger meal at around 11 PM. Since they’re up again at 5 AM, they’re not getting much sleep during Ramadan, which must add to the agitation and anxiety! But it is a yearly ritual that affirms their Muslim faith. It is humbling to observe the Malians who continue to work and go about their daily business during Ramadan, because I don’t think I could possibly keep working without food and water all day! I should also mention that kids, the elderly, and adults who are pregnant or sick do not fast during Ramadan. People are not forced to fast; it is a personal choice, a decision between you and Allah, so some adults will still sneak a snack or at least drink some water during the day.

I am headed back to Kenieba tomorrow, in time for the fête on Thursday. I’ll be celebrating the end of Ramadan by eating a big feast with my homologue’s family. My host family is still in Bamako as school doesn't start here until October. So, one more month of cooking lunches for myself as well!

I uploaded some new photos of Kenieba in the rainy season; you can view them by clicking the photo:

Christmas Recap

Happy New Year everyone! 2009 has been an incredible year, from skiing in Utah to moving to Mali and completing six months of Peace Corps service here. Although it has been a challenging year moving to one of the poorest countries in the world, I am fortunate to be working here with the support of my friends and family back home. 2010 is shaping up to be another exciting year; I am looking forward to starting some good projects and continuing to do good work here.

December has been a whirlwind month, and I am very ready to get back home to Kenieba. I've been away for 38 days, most of it for Peace Corps training but also enjoying the holidays with friends. I am anxious to get back and see my host family and other Malian friends, and stop living out of a backpack again!

Unfortunately I have some sad news to share... I checked in with the guy who has been watching my house, and he told me that my cat died, apparently of natural causes. Though I was not a cat person before coming to Mali, I enjoyed having Kalo as a pet. I'm definitely considering getting another cat, if the opportunity arises. I'm sure my house will feel different without Kalo around.

On a more positive note, I really fun time celebrating Christmas with a bunch of friends up in Dogon Country. We stayed with a Peace Corps volunteer, and both she and her work counterpart did an awesome job hosting us. We had a great time exploring her village, enjoyed an awesome Christmas feast, and completed an incredible three day hike.

The terrain there is actually pretty similar to Kenieba, a long chain of cliffs that dominate the landscape. The Dogons live on top of these huge cliffs, literally on top of the rock. There is not much dirt or arable land, so their houses are made out of the rocks. They are really impressive; the photos explain it much better. It is definitely not as green as Kenieba, as you are not far from the Sahara desert up there!

One drawback was that the region is a big tourist attraction and we were there in the height of the tourist season. The kids were pretty obnoxious, asking for a gift, candy, a pen, or our empty water bottles all the time! I must have heard "Monsieur, bouteille" at least a few hundred times, to the point where I thought my name was Mr. Bottle! The average tourist loves to give gifts to the kids, so they expect some from any white person who is walking through their town. That is something I am glad to not have to deal with in Kenieba. We are way off the tourist track down there!

Luckily we saw Dogon Country beyond the average tourist's perspective. The first few nights we stayed on the roof of the Peace Corps volunteer's house. It was an incredible experience to sleep under a blanket of stars and wake up to a beautiful sunrise each morning. The three day hike was probably the best hike I have ever done. We descended the cliffs and traversed across the plain through various villages, and worked our way back up the cliffs on the last day. The pictures explain it best. Here's the picture link: http://picasaweb.google.com/wbudd3/Christmas2009#

Back in Bamako and Off to Dogon

So I have been back at Tubaniso the past two weeks for in-service training. It was hard at first to get used to full days of technical training sessions, especially after having so much free time at site. Overall though, the sessions have been interesting and I hope to try out some of the things I learned here during my service.

It has been neat to hear about my friends' experiences at site and their living situations. Some volunteers are working in rural villages that don't have electricity or a water pump, or even cell phone coverage (imagine that!). Once the sun goes down, you just have a lantern to cook your dinner or do anything else. On the other hand, most volunteers have much easier access to their regional capitals and can meet up with other PCVs. I've mentioned here before how Kenieba is so isolated... it's tough to leave more than once a month because the trip is so long. But I think that's a good thing, as I will be more integrated and hopefully more productive since I'll be at site more often.

We had a big Christmas party last night, and it was great to celebrate with everyone and get in the holiday spirit. Most of the Malian work counterparts are here for training too, so they got to witness an American Christmas celebration. We made some great decorations... paper snowflakes, candy canes, Santa and a Christmas tree. The kitchen staff made a great meal for us. We had popcorn and hot chocolate afterwards, thanks to a generous PCV who got a ginormous can of Swiss Miss in a care package. After a huge Secret Santa gift exchange (I got a Snickers bar!), we watched Home Alone on the projector screen. Some of the Malian counterparts stuck around for the movie, and it was interesting to see how they reacted. They got a kick out of how slippery ice is, and how you can see your footprints in the snow!

In general, Malians learn a lot about other cultures from the TV shows and movies that end up on TV here. Some people, especially those who didn't finish school, think that everything they see on TV is reality. I've watched episodes of 24, CSI, even Knight Rider (that 80's show with David Hasselhof and the talking car). Unfortunately, pro wrestling even made it across the ocean. It's interesting to see how glued they are to the TV. I speak up when there's something that obviously isn't real.

I will be celebrating Christmas with a bunch of friends in Dogon country, a region in central Mali that is home to the Dogon people. After Christmas, we are going on a three day hike on the cliffs to tour some of the villages. Should be a great trip!

I hope everybody has a safe and merry Christmas! Miss you!

Tabaski

Made it to Kayes today after a long, uncomfortable bus ride from Kenieba. It's hard to put into words how unpleasant the trip was, but basically we were crammed in there. There were 7 people to a row, (6 small seats and someone standing or sitting on a water jug in the aisle) all bouncing around as the bus crawled down the dirt road. Needless to say, I'm relieved to be here and enjoying all the room to stretch out!

Anyway, here's the first entry, about the big holiday last weekend.

Tabaski is one of the biggest holidays in Mali. The tradition is for each family to sacrifice a goat and enjoy a big feast. There was a lot of preparation leading up to the big fête… the elementary schools had Thursday and Friday off. Women were getting their hair done a few days before. Friday, the day before Tabaski, was like a huge shopping spree. Matt and Jim had to take out money at the bank, and they said the scene reminded them of a commodities trading floor in the US, people pushing into the office to take out money for the holiday. The market was packed… hundreds of people buying their supplies for the big feast. I bought 2 kilograms of potatoes for my host family as a gift for the fête.

I woke up on Saturday morning, the day of the big feast, to the sound of roosters, motos speeding down my road, and sheep baa-ing. When I was leaving my concession to buy some bread for breakfast, I told my host dad that I was surprised to see the sheep had not been sacrificed yet. He explained that they first go to a big prayer session (I found out later that over 2,000 people were there), and when they get back, it's time to sacrifice the sheep.

So I got ready for the big day, and walked next door to get a front row seat for the butchering of the sheep. I can’t say I have witnessed something like this before, but it was less gruesome than I thought it would be (I conveniently missed the actual slaying). My host dad did a good job taking the insides out and cutting out the good stuff for us to cook and eat. At around noon we ate an awesome meal of tender meat, fried potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, onions, and a delicious mustard/vinegar/oil sauce to top it all off. It was really good.

I figured that this meal was our lunch for the day, so I asked if I could bring some of the leftover food back for Kalo, since that’s what I usually do after lunch every day. My host mom, Fanta, gave me a strange look and reluctantly put some in a bowl for the cat. Little did I know, “lunch” would be coming at 3 PM! Go figure. It was another delicious meal of meat and bashi, a couscous like food made from corn.

Like at the end of Ramadan, kids from the neighborhood came around to wish my host family and me a happy Tabaski and that I will have as prosperous a celebration next year. Lots of family friends came by as well to say hello and say the various benedictions.

Late in the day, as the sun was setting, I went around the neighborhood and took photos of my host family and my neighbors. They were all really excited about it, as they had their best clothes on for the big fête. All in all, a fun day!

I put up a photo album from the holiday... be warned though, the first few pictures are of the sheep getting cut up, so if you want to skip that, click the first link:
Tabaski 2009 Photo Album (without butchering)
Tabaski 2009 Photo Album (with butchering)

I also put up more photos from a big hike that Matt and I went on in November.

The Seasons are Changing

It has been a busy month in Kenieba. My landlord hired a painter to come and paint all of the walls in my house, inside and out. He finished a few days ago. The house looks really good, and since I had to move all the furniture around, it feels kind of like I moved into a new house! I have also been meeting with more artisans and other Malians who have ideas for community projects.

The rainy season ended in October (we haven’t had any significant rain in a few weeks), and the “cold season” has begun. It is still hot in the middle of the day, but at night the temperature drops into the 60s. Most Malians don their heaviest clothes when the sun sets… big winter jackets, wool sweaters and big hats. I thought about taking out the one sweatshirt I brought from home, but it has been so nice to bask in the cool weather! Admittedly, even I have felt chilly when I am outside at night, but the inside of my house stays warm after baking in the sun all day. It has been great sleeping weather!

This time of the year is also "burn your trash" season. Every family has been burning their trash. I have been reluctant to ignite my trash pile, but someone comes and takes my trash every once in a while so it is probably just burned with someone else’s trash. There have also been brush fires on the outskirts of town. I'm not sure if the brush fires were set on purpose or if a trash fire spread to the brush, but all of this burning has caused a big haze to set in over Kenieba. Also, since all the roads are dirt, the dust has really picked up. My host mom told me to close all the windows because otherwise everything will be covered in dust. So, the smoke and dust has been something to deal with as the dry season sets in.

Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Mali, but an important Muslim holiday, Tabaski, happens to fall on the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year. Since the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, Islamic holidays fall on a different day every year. The tradition here in Mali is to sacrifice a sheep and prepare a big feast for the holiday. It should be a fun day!

Matt, Jim and I are at one of the big gold mines this evening, getting our Internet fix and hanging out with some of the workers. It's a nice facility up here... I'm freezing right now in the air conditioning! Fortunately, since the mine isn't too far from Kenieba, I will be able to update this blog more often than I have been the past few months.

We are heading up to Kayes the first week in December and then on to Bamako for a Peace Corps training session. So I will be in Kenieba for Thanksgiving. Happy Turkey Day to everyone back home!