ISP is over and I have presented and it was awesome , though now I but now I am in a hotel and sick with a cold that turned into a bacterial infection. I have left my home stay family and at this moment am unsure whether or not I will go visit them again. Now for a few things that make me happy.

Since I don’t have a phone I usually walk across the street to talk to my friend who lives the closest to me. The children on her street know me and my name and just about every morning they run up to me with the happiest smiles on their faces screaming “Aïchata! Aïchata!”

My maid, Lala, doesn’t’ really speak French but she knows a few things like: “ça va?” and “Bon nuit!” and things like that. What is wonderful is when we can still communicate things like “I need a cup of porridge.” Or “I like your hair.” Through a mixture of the little Bambara that I know and gestures. I also love when she thinks no one is looking she will dance and sing a little as she goes about her work.

Every now and then my sister Tantie, the one that I share a bed with and who is kind of in charge of me will joke around with me about the smallest things, but then when I try and joke with her it’s doesn’t translate.

Sunday night I laid on my foam pad of a bed and watched a storm move in over my part of Bamako. It is so hard to describe that feeling of being calm, but then this lightning is flashing all the time and the wind is blowing hard and ever so slowly the clouds are blocking your view of the stars. Finally my cousin who was on the roof with me thought that we should go downstairs. This was after the sky had been fully covered by the white clouds. I am going to miss sleeping on a roof under the stars a whole lot.

I love climbing into a Sotarama and greeting everyone in Bambara and having the old ladies continue the greeting with me.

I love being able to buy a soda for 400 cfa.

My family often gets dressed up and then asks me to take a photos of them, and they never smile until I make them laugh and then tell them that they are prettier like that.

No as I said we are in a hotel.  I have been chilling here all day because I was exhausted this morning and I have really good book to read.  That I was hoping would save me from the nine hour layover I have in Senegal, but instead it kept me in a hotel room... though I do feel better now that I spent all day here... who knows.

Sorry I haven’t been posting, but I lost my converter, and so I have to borrow someone else’s and charge my computer, then when it is fully charged I can go to cyber’s and work on it and stuff, but then it dies (though it takes a few days because it is and awesome little computer) and I have to wait to be able to charge it again. I went on the Grande Excursion, but never had time to write about it, and also what has been going on since the 12th of April I have been working on my Independent Study Project!
The Grande Excursion was really fun but also made it difficult to go back to living with my family in Bamako. What I mean by this is that with the Grande Excursion came real beds, air conditioning, eating dinner at a table, privacy, sleep, and talking in English. Whereas in Bamako I sleep on a foam mat, the only air conditioning is when you have sweat so much you shiver when the wind blows, eating with dinner in your lap and a spoon, no privacy because you can’t close the window and the women are always coming in and out of the room you share with your sister, it is too hot to sleep anywhere during the day, and you switch between French and a little Bambara to try and get your point and your needs across. Anyway the Grande Excursion was supposed to be an “Educational Excursion” and we did learn a lot but we also just kind of relaxed and dreaded ISP time starting. The cities we stayed in were Ségou, Teriyabougou, Djenné, Sangha (Dogon Country), and Mopti, in that order. Then we stayed in Ségou for the night before we went back to Bamako. All these places were pretty awesome. I think my favorite was Teriyabougou, because it was the prettiest and the most comfortable. Ségou was my second favorite though, because it’s air conditioning worked best and it’s pool was the best. Djenné was other peoples favorites but I was ripped off there, ended up spending a lot of money there buying stuff for people, and was also trying to register for classes and the internet at the cyber that I went to was a joke so I ended up having to call my mom and have her register for me. Which worked out okay but there are still a few things that I need to work out. Then in Sangha we went for this hike that I ended up not being able to finish because my asthma was really bad when we started going up the cliff instead of down… so I got my first ride on a motorcycle ever… on a moto that started by hot wiring, up a cliff… trying not to run over the animals in the road or fall off… it was one of the craziest experiences of my life. I don’t think I will willingly ride a moto again in Mali. Then in Mopti I bought more gifts for people and spend more money, but the gifts are pretty awesome and the air conditioning in the hotel was really good and there was free wifi in the lobby. Another reason why Mopti was so awesome was because there was a shop owned by a guy who has traveled extensively in the states, and worked extensively with the Peace corps in Mopti. His name is Peace corps Baba, and he talked REALLY loud, but was super funny, and had some awesome real African jewelry and when something wasn’t necessarily from Africa he knew where it had come from and the history of how it had come to Africa. The bus rides around Mali are long and rough sometimes especially when the roads are not paved by anything except the cars and animals that travel on them. The scenery is very interesting and is a strange mix between West Texas wasteland and hill country greenery, a lot more sparse than either, though. Also we would have to stop at check points within the country to check our papers and stuff but the people at all these stops would sell things and when we didn’t want to buy anything they would ask for a gift. At one point we started asking why, and they wouldn’t know how to act about that. What is really sad about this is that somewhere along the way some white people had to have started just handing out gifts of money or food, or something like that for the Malians to think that it was okay. Anyway that was frustrating and every now and then we would give them empty water bottles for them to reuse, and fights would break out over them. I discovered that one of my talents is being able to sleep on this horrible bus and especially during some of the bumpiest parts. I hope this talent transfers to the plane ride back, because usually I can’t sleep on planes unless I am super tired. After Ségou the last time we went to Bamako and ate at a restaurant called Amandine’s that we go to after every trip outside of Bamako. Then I went home and hung out with my family. They missed me a lot, and I missed them so we sat and talked and I was very Malian and asked about all the different people in my family that weren’t present then and my mom was really impressed that I knew all the names of all the people living in the house. Then on Monday (the next day) we went to school, talked about ISP stuff and got our stipend for the month wrote a paper, and then went our separate ways to start our ISP’s. I say separate but only three people left Bamako for research.
I am doing my project on the underground homosexual culture here in Bamako. This has been really hard even though it has only been going on for two weeks. I met with my advisor a lot and then on the 15th we went to two night clubs to actually go find homosexuals. We met with two people and I had one really good interview and one really bad interview, then went home around three in the morning. My research involves a lot of waiting. I have to wait for my advisor to get the Arts school that he works at and that we meet at. Then when we go to nightclubs I wait while he poses as a homosexual and gets actual homosexuals to come be interviewed by me or we get their contact information. This is really stressful and the fact that I don’t get a lot of sleep doesn’t help. It is also difficult because a lot of other people in my group have completely different hours than me and we see very little of each other. One good thing is that I share an advisor with the one guy on the trip so we usually take Sotarama’s to INA (Insitution National des Arts) which is where our advisor works. Our advisor also has him come along on our trips to clubs so that when he leaves I am not a white woman sitting alone in a bar, which is potentially dangerous, but with Will there the danger virtually disappears except for the one time when both he and our Advisor have left for separate things and then two people sat down asking me questions about why we were looking for homosexuals (in a non threatening “I know someone” kind of way), but my French sucks, and is so much worse at 2 in the morning with music blaring, so I didn’t really get much across to them.

A robber climb over our neighbors wall, then into our compound, then walked up our outsides staircase to where most of us were sleeping and then took our phones from besides our sleeping forms. Then I went to a Ja Rule concert (take some time to chuckle at that please) and as it was ending someone starts throwing bottles in our general direction and the gendarmes find the guy pull him through a gap in the gate, rough him up a little bit and then take him away. On our way out of the Ja Rule concert a group of guys start circling a friend and then one guy pushes me out of the way and grabs her and starts trying to rip her skinny purse strap apart so that he can take her purse. We all start fighting for her and some Malians are in the mix but we aren’t sure if they are helping us or the guy and. We finally get her and her purse away from him and running to go find a taxi and they follow us. We cross a street and they continue to follow us, then we try and grab a taxi but it is full, and then an empty taxi drives by and doesn’t stop but they follow it and I get cut off from the group by a huge SUV and a big Malian man hits my ass and laughs at me saying “oh the white girl is scared.” I run off to get back with the others. We get in the Taxi and I start bawling and just freaking out! But one of my friends was able to stay the night and that made us both feel better. That all happened last Friday. This could have happened in any big city though, and potentially we were targeted because we were white, and they think that white people have a lot of money (which in this case we do because even a little American money is a lot here)

Have I mentioned yet that I hate Malian men? They feel so entitled to everything. Not just rights because everyone is entitle to those, but to have any woman they want, and to not have to do chores, and they also feel entitled to respect. I (as I am sure that you are aware) do not respect anyone who feels that they are entitled to it without actually doing anything except breathing. So few men here have my respect. I often tell them no when they ask for my number because it teaches them a lesson, and because I like seeing their sure-of-themselves faces change into confusion.

The women here are wonderful. They are so nice and kind and would give you the shirt off of their back if you smiled at their child. They are so capable. Yes they feel indebted to men and often feel that they are inferior beings but they are still so caring. The children here are aggressive and will run up to you and shake your hand because you are white. They will also play with you once you get to know them enough.

My family is very western in some ways and very Malian in others. That translates to the women having pretty western ideas but performing traditional Malian task and the men enjoying western technology and jobs but having very traditional Malian ideas. This means that I sit and get frustrated watching the men boss the women around and not getting to talk to the women much. Though they looked at me in horror when I stated that I did not like cooking. I can’t picture you in most of Mali but I can picture you in the bars where live music is being played and cold beer is being served. Not that I drink the beer, I order my usual rum and coke (they put SO MUCH RUM in their drinks) while everyone orders a beer. Of course my tastes are more expensive, though I realized that I prefer cheap champagne and wine to the expensive brands because they taste sweeter.

Lately I will have dreams that I am back in the states, but then I wake up on a roof in Bamako. That is probably one of the worst feelings, apart from realizing that someone took your phone from beside your sleeping head, hoping with all your hear that you are one place and realizing that you are in the exact opposite place.

Right now Gay Malian Men suck. I am trying to get in touch with someone who has been telling me that he is going to get a bunch of his friends to come over to his house and fill out a questionnaire for me and my research. It was supposed to be last Saturday then he was sick so he changed it to this Thursday but now he isn’t answering his phone…. UGH! Anyway besides that I am good, I drank a coke that had expired in February today… it tasted kind of funny, and the can smelled like dog, I drank most of it but didn’t finish it.

Right now I have almost two weeks till I leave here I am looking forward to that. I miss home like I said. Okay I'm going to stop being so mopey and go work on my paper!

Frustrations and End of Classes

I am getting more used to life here. Not many things surprise me as much as they did when I first got here. Though I am more aware of things now and not necessarily trying to just communicate and go where I need to go and get done what I need to get done. One of the most annoying things is how obsessed people here are with having a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Often they want more than one and often if you don’t have one they will try and get you one. This is frustrating for everyone here. There are nine of us. Eight girls and one guy. Most of our siblings/cousins have brought up dating to us and though five of the people in the group have significant others four of us don’t. Though that doesn’t really matter here apparently because they still want to go out with you. Let me relate to you a perfect example of the conversations that we have.

I am sitting with eating dinner and my cousin Abu who is few years younger than me sits down and I ask him how his day was and what he did. He told me that he went swimming with his girlfriend and how beautiful and big and dark she was. Then he asked me about the youngest person in the group and I told him her name, he asked if she had a boyfriend in the states and I said no. He then wanted to know all the names (Malian) of the girls in the group, and I got to one girl and said her name and he asked if she had a boyfriend in the states and I said yes, and he said “That doesn’t matter, it’s a balance: an American boyfriend, and a Malian one, it’s better this way.” Then one of my brothers asked me why I hadn’t gotten him an American girlfriend. I told him it wasn’t my job to find him a girlfriend. He laughed and kept telling me to find him one. I then started to pretend that I couldn’t hear him and he laughed and went and did other things. My cousin though had now been joined by youngest sister and started grilling me about why I didn’t have a boyfriend. Then they decided that I should date the one guy in the group and I told them that we were friends, their response was that friendship can turn into love. UGH! Then they kept asking me if I loved him as a friend or as boyfriend, that is when I got up and left. As you can see they are very persistent.

Another frustrating thing is that for dinner I often get spaghetti (with seasoning, but no sauce…), or an African Guacamole Sandwich (It is basically guacamole but seasoned with Maggi which is similar to Ramen seasoning MSG included I get it without onion and tomatoes though because I don’t like raw onions and the tomatoes are bitter, on part of a baguette of bread.) Now have actually learned to like Avocado much more than did in the States which is good, because I always wanted to like avocado, but just never could. So to remedy my eating situation I have started asking for different things that I used to get, but then they stopped for whatever reason. Like French Fries, or French fries and avocado which is what I asked for Sunday night and got it and it was AMAZING . The amazing thing about French fries here is that they are made with Palm Oil, which can taste like bacon, which is impossible to find because Mali is predominantly Muslim and they don’t eat pork . So I will be trying to figure simple but good dishes that have two types of food on them instead of just one.

Classes have ended and Today (Monday) and Tomorrow (Tuesday) are exam days. All weekend I have been writing essays to turn in. But it has been kind of fun because the first day Will and I walked, but then on the way back, we decided to be brave Toubabu’s and ride a Sotarama back to our neighborhood. Sotarama’s are a little scary because it is a van that has been gutted and wooden benches bolted into the floor and “oh Shit!” bars bolted into the top. A guy hangs out the side and calls the place that they are going. Depending on the time of day and the actual day you could get into a completely empty Sotarama or a completely full Sotarama. A full Sotarama is one of the most intense experiences I have ever had. I was pushed in a corner with my feet tucked under the bench because of a spare tire that was put there. Then this woman sat down next to me but was definitely too big for the space that was left by a women half her size. This means that she was sitting on me. I had my full backpack and a mostly full bottle of water to hold on to. Also it is almost impossible for me to get out of a Sotarama without bumping my head on something… but they are also super fun. One time when we got into a Sotarama these two unrelated people asked us our names (Malian) and then started fighting about our answers. Important fact: Last names are SO IMPORTANT here. Mine is Karabenta, that is a Bozo name our Joking Cousins (or people we used to be at war with but now just make fun of) are the Dogon’s, one of the other girl’s in the program is living with a Dogon family and whenever we talk about each other our families make little side comments. Doumbia, Will’s last name, is Bambara and once when we were walking to school a large group of people asked us our names and when he told them his they all broke into cheers! It was so awesome! Where I was going with this was that today has been very chill and I finished my written French exam pretty quickly, because that is just how I take tests. Tomorrow all we have to do is turn our Bambara Final and then take the Oral French final which I feel is goind to be pretty easy, I mean I have learned a lot of French here. And all that SIT and SU are looking for is that I learned something, and that I passed the class. Which I am pretty sure that I did, yeah today and tomorrow are basically just chill days.

On Wednesday we will be going on our Grand Excursion. This means that we will be traveling for twelve days through Mali: Ségou, Teryabougou, Djenné, Sangha, Mopti, back to Ségou, and then home to Bamako. After that I will be starting my Independent Study Project I will be studying the Underground Homosexual Culture in Bamako. This is kind of dangerous for me because one my family is very against homosexuality and if they found out that I was researching that they won’t understand, and they might decide that I was a homosexual and then kick me out. Interestingly enough, I am not technically homosexual. I identify as Pansexual which means that I don’t like gender and will date people for who they are not for what they present their gender as. So this is going to be an interesting month, when my family realizes that I don’t have school and meeting with random people, and they ask me what I do with my time. I had talked to Modibo about it and he said to just say that I am studying Gender Relations, and that that is close enough to the truth that it won’t raise too many questions.

So I have been having to buy water for about a month, because the tablets that I bought ran out about a month in, and so I have been buying water when I am not in school and can’t borrow a SteriPEN from my fellow students. Water is about 400 cfa for 1.5 liters, I need two during the day and two at night so that is 1,600 cfa, a day. But NOW I finally got the package that my Dad sent from the states which has a beautiful SteriPEN in it!!! Now all the money that I would have been spending on water can be spent on things like clothes, and going to the cyber to post this blog, and going out!!! I am so friggin’ excited! Also in this beautiful package came a voice recorder, so that when I start my ISP I can recorder people and then run it back later and type up what they said instead instead of scrambling to right it all down, though I will still take notes, it will just be easier when going over them!! AND in this AMAZING package is my French-English dictionary!! This will make things a lot easier when my family is telling me something and I have no clue what they are talking about!! Oh this package is going to make my life so much easier!!! So now I am just waiting for the package that my Sorority sent me which has a bunch of fun stuff, I hope that comes tomorrow, so that I have fun things on the Grand Excursion. I feel like my Dad and my Sorority sent my packages around the same time… maybe it is in Bali, or Malawi.

So I am having my tailor make a faux Vera Bradley bag that I designed! I get it tomorrow (Tuesday)!! I am so excited about it!! I am going by today so that I maybe it will be done, and maybe I will get it sooner, and maybe some of the dresses I am having made will be done, but I don’t really care about those, what I want is my BAG!!!! It is yellow, with black swirls on it, and it has two pockets in the front, and a pouch for my computer, a pouch for the cords, a pouch for miscellaneous crap and a big pouch for my books and notebooks!! There will be pictures on Facebook of it!! OH! And one of the best parts is that the inside is NOT going to be black. I made sure that it was yellow, so that I can find shit in there! My tailor wanted it to be black his reasoning being that it when it gets dirty it will show less if it is black and more if it is yellow, and I said “AYI! Jaune!” which is “No” in Bambara and “Yellow” in French. And on the outside I am having a diamond pattern stitched into it in alternating colors of Red, green and blue. This bag is costing about 7,500 cfa but it is so worth it, because in the states a VB bag like that is $60 but here it is about $16! I am so excited!! My tailor is funny, but crazy. He wants to marry me, or at least someone like me “because I am so big and strong.” This is an interesting point of cultural intersection. Women here are praised for being bigger, but there are also a lot of pressure to be more western, which as we all know means not big. So one thing that is particularly Malian is the phrase “belebeleba” which is a big woman, now depending who you are talking to and the situation there may also be the connotation that a “belebeleba” may also be a woman who is more assertive. I am fine with this definition, but again it varies from person to person, and depends on the situation.

Spring Break Sanankoroba!!!! AKA I hate rural life...

I just came back from Sanankoroba, which is a village45 minutes outside of Bamako. I stayed with the Jara family. We left Bamako around 8 o’clock in the morning and arrived in Sanankoroba about 9 o’clock. Then we were divided up into groups of two. Except the one guy on the trip Will who had to stay by himself since there are nine of us and one guy. So our families pick us up and take us and our matts and mattresses to their compounds. My roommate was Laurel. Our compound was about a 5-15 minute walk to La Case de l’Amité where our professors were staying, and where we would meet before going to our next activity.
My compound consisted of about a dozen mud houses. They are a lot cooler than the concrete houses in Bamako, but of course with many less amenities. My compound did not have electricity or running water, though I did see a few others with fluorescent lights. We put our stuff in a hut that had a pot of shea butter and a tea tray*. Then we went and did the Mali Chill for a little bit. We were a little restless and asked if we could go for a walk and Soloman the guy who was apparently in charge of us took us around the village. We came upon a tree that we thought was a cashew tree, but apparently not. We asked if they were ready and he said that they ones on top were. He then proceeded to climb the tree and get us about six. We tried them when we got back to the compound. The as we bit into the fruit the juice proceeded to dry out our entire mouth. We were pretty tired when we got back from this walk because both of us were recovering from various illnesses and wanted to nap. Also we were tired of saying “N ma famu” which means “I don’t understand” in Bambara. So we went and napped for about two hours, while listening to the rooster crowing, and the donkeys braying. Donkeys make horrible noises. They sound like death, especially at night when they wake you up. Then we decided that we should probably get up and go sit and do the Mali chill with our family.
They served us lunch, which consisted of potatoes doused in Maggi and Palm Oil, with some really tough meat. After lunch we did the Mali Chill with the family under a mango tree. Laurel played clapping games with the kids and drew pictures in the dirt while I sat and took it all in and got used to the people I was going to be living with for five days. WE did this until it was time to go and meet up with the rest of the group at Case de l’Amité. Soloman is very quiet and speaks a little French but didn’t have any idea what to do with us. We would talk in English to each other as we walked to the Case and he would make a remark about it, and then we would be quiet, for a little bit. But both Laurel and I like to talk and so the quiet wouldn’t last for very long.
We finally reach the Case and met up with the rest of the group. Then our professors took us to a pavilion where we learned how to do wax stamping on fabric. I chose a stamp that had to palm leaves crossed in an ‘x’. I stamped my fabric in a checkerboard pattern. After that we went back to the Case for water and to wait for our families to pick us up and take us back to the compound. Laurel was feeling worse and thought that it would be a good idea to stay in a sanitary place and go see a doctor so she decided to go back to Bamako. So Modibo drove Laurel, Soloman, and I to the compound then Laurel gathered her stuff and they went back to Bamako.
Not gonna lie: I wanted to cry. I was so terrified, because I only had an inkling of an idea on how to communicate with this family! I kept repeating to myself “I’m hardcore. I’m hardcore. I’m hardcore” This ended up helping me a lot. So I am sitting doing the Mali Chill with my Bambara notes trying to figure out what they are asking me, when everyone starts looking over a wall at something coming towards the compound. I ends up being Minnie and Rachel with the family member assigned to them, like Soloman was assigned to me. So we sit awkwardly and talk partially in English, partially in French, and partially in Bambara. After about 15 minutes their brother says that it is time to leave. Soloman and I walk them about halfway to their compound then turn around and walk back to our compound.
When we get back we sit down and I ask if I can take a bath. Soloman disappears after muttering something that I didn’t understand. He then reappears and tell me that it is ready. I change into a skirt that I have been wearing as a dress in Bamako when I take a bath, and everybody laughs at me as I exit my hut. I ignore them and follow Soloman to an open air mud structure, that is in another part of the compound. There is a short passage entering into the structure, then you turn to the left and it opened up into the bathroom area. The floor was concrete/mud but not just dirt. There was a hole in the middle of the area and in one corner there was a drainage hole to the outside. Waiting for me was a bucket of dirty water with a stick in it. I tentatively dip my washcloth in and begin my bath. After my bath I felt a little braver and when I was dressed and DEETed I sat down to do my stressed out version of the Mali Chill. I say stressed because I wasn’t comfortable with them and wasn’t used to their speech pattern or body language yet.
As I am sitting there I get told to eat some rice and beans from a communal bowl. Then I am told to stop. Then they take me to the part of the compound where the bathing/toilet structure was. They have me eat about five or six handfuls of some really awesome ‘toh’ then they tell me to stop. They start eating after a bit and so I begin as well. They stop and then tell me to stop eating all together. SO I sit and watch them devour the ‘toh’ that is amazingly delicious. They then take me back to the part of the compound where I was before and give me spaghetti and fish. Definitely not as good as ‘toh’. So I eat as much of that as I can muster and say the magical phrase “N Fara” “I’m full” they always look at you like you are crazy but generally don’t argue. Then Soloman and his brother help me set up my bed and mosquito net.
I grab my toothbrush and ask Soloman where I am supposed to do this. He shows me to a similar mud structure like the one I bathed but less refined, and right on the wall waiting for me was my bathroom buddy “Negen” in Bamabara, “La cafard” in French, “ La Cucaracha” in Spanish and “Cockroach” in English. I stop in my tracks because I notice that there are more than just one. He continues to indicate that I am to enter the structure. I indicate that I hate roaches and he tries to get some off of the wall, and I ask if I can brush my teeth away from that area and the compound he says yes that it is all the same so I stay nicely way from the roaches and get to brush my teeth in peace. I return my toothbrush to my baggage and exit ready for bed. I announce to the group near my bed “N be taa N da” “I am going to lie down” and they say a few blessings and I respond with “Amiina” which is “Amen” and then I give a blessing “Ala, ka su here caya” “May God increase the peace of the night” and they respond with “Amiina” and I crawl under my bed and they continue with their loud Bambara and laughter.
It is difficult to fall asleep in a new place with loud people talking, but I manage after awhile. I wake up a bit with the random donkeys making their dying noises, but finally I sleep. At about 4:45 am I am startled awake by a person a few paces away from me yelling very loudly! I have no idea what to do. So I lay their listening to him yelling and moving about on his bed making horrible choking noises. I finally decide to glance over hoping that he is not throwing up, and see that instead of lying on his bed he is across it with his face smashed in the dirt. I also notice that it is Soloman. Some people run over with flashlights and decide that he is fine, which I didn’t understand! He seemed to have fallen back to sleep snoring painfully in the dirt. I drift in and out of sleep, terrified and convinced that at any moment he is going to stop snoring and die. Finally after about an hour his brother wakes him up and Soloman adjusts his position until he is fully on the bed. He stops snoring and is breathing correctly. I finally fall fully asleep and wake up at 6:30 with my alarm.
I take down my net and take my mat and mattress into my hut and am about to change clothes when Soloman comes in with a plastic kettle.** I ask him why and he motions that I am supposed to wash my face. I decide to go along with it and go to the structure that I brushed my teeth near. It is more mazelike than the first one and has two rooms divided by a wall one for pooing and such and the other for…bathing? I wash my face sort of and then go back and use baby wipes to really get the dirt off. I then get ready because the schedule says 7:30, and I am so freaked out by my experience a few hours ago I just want to get to people I know. So I keep pushing him to take me to the Case. He asks me something I say I don’t understand but that I need to be there by 7:30. He says okay and we leave.
When we get to the Case the only people there are Harber my French teacher and the program assistant, and Lamine the Bambara professor. They look at me strangely and talk to Soloman in Bambara a little bit. They ask me if I have had breakfast and I say no, I didn’t have time because the schedule said to get there at 7:30. They then explain to me that Modibo had changed the time yesterday to 8. I say I didn’t here that and then they feed me breakfast. I explain to them then what had happened earlier that morning and they then say that they understand why I wanted to get to the Case so early.
Everyone else arrives and we depart for the SOS Village for Children. You should look up SOS Villages on the internet and read about them they are pretty awesome. Then we visited an SOS school for adolescents. Then we went back to the Case for lunch and Mali Chillin’. We stayed there until three and then we went back to the pavilion where we wax stamped our fabric. The next step was to die them! I chose purple! They came out really well! There are pictures on Facebook. That took awhile. Then we went back to the Case for water and our families.
I really didn’t want to go back, because I was a afraid of the unknown. But after I got there and “bathed” really I just washed my feet that water was too dirty. I sat down and it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was. They made a little fun of me for some cultural things, but besides that it was fine. I went to bed, no one slept near me and it was as peaceful a night as I could ask for there, despite the donkeys and howling dogs.
In the morning I wake up to my alarm at 6:30 but don’t get out of bed until 7 since I knew that I didn’t have to get to school until 8. So I dress and wash my face with baby wipes. Then I get a knock on my door, I open it and it is a woman with a crying baby on her hip and she asks me if I am ready. I assume that it is for breakfast and I say almost. She leaves and I follow to go sit in a chair. Soloman tells me to go back to my hut and follows me with a chair. The woman returns with a bowl and a cup of hot liquid something. I think that it is a sauce and ask her through motions if I am supposed to pour it on the sandwich. She makes a noise that I assume is yes, and then leaves. I start eating a sandwich of what I think might be fish and onions but I am not sure at all what it is and decide that I don’t want to pour the liquid on the sandwich because then it will be too soggy. So I dip my sandwich in the liquid. It is super sweet and I am enjoying the sweet/savory contrast. I eat all of my sandwich and as I am packing up my stuff to leave Soloman asks me why I didn’t drink my coffee… I stare at him in astonishment and explain to him my misunderstandings, we both laugh at it, and then in all seriousness he asks me if I am going to drink my coffee. The coffee with onion, and bread and possibly fish in it. I pause for a second and say yes. The coffee was so sugary that I didn’t even notice the onion and other things, I just needed to strain them out a bit with my teeth. So we leave after that and go to the Case.
Everyone met at the Case and we headed towards the Health Clinic of Sanankoroba and while walking there we get news that Laurel is back in Sanankoroba! I was so excited to hear that! I mean I was doing pretty okay on my own, but I was definitely lonely all by myself! So we all greet her and walk the rest of the way to the clinic. One of the interesting things that we find out there is that women usually are married and having children at 16. I can’t imagine that! It made me think about the Jara family and wonder how many of those women were: my age, married, and had two kids already. Two of the students in my group talked about a chart that their Sanankoroba dad had each childs name written in the order they were born, and that they were in different alternating colors. They speculated that each wife alternated having a child.
After that we went back to the Case, and then back to the pavilion where we used stencils to paint things on a yellow t-shirt with a mud dye called Bogolan. There are pics on Facebook. After that we went back to the Case for lunch and Mali Chillin’. Then we went back to the SOS Village and screen printed a white t-shirt, and used Bogolan to make a banner type thing. On mine I wrote “Ala, ka tile here caya” “May God increase the peace of the day”. I hope my roommate will let me put it up in our apartment next semester! Then we went back to the Case. Laurel and I decided to start walking to meet Soloman, as we were walking along the big road that splits Sanankoroba in two we saw a donkey standing in the middle of the road with this two foot penis!!! We kept thinking that it wasn’t real and that it was something else, but no, that donkey had a two foot penis that almost touched the ground. As it stood there a huge truck almost hit it! That made us think that something was not quite right with that donkey. Anyway we were too astonished to think to take a picture, so you will just have to believe me.
We met up with Soloman and he walked us back to the compound we ‘bathed’ and then hung out a bit with peeps. For dinner they served us CUCUMBERS!! It was one of the most horrifying meals of my life because that is all it was... VEGETABLES!!! UGH!!! Though it did have some hardboiled eggs. So I put cucumbers and egg in a sandwich and ate half then took the cucumbers out and ate the egg and bread. Then we “N fara”ed our way out of eating the rest and went to bed. That night I talked to my mom and she told me that my SU class ring had gotten to her house and that everything was spelled correctly! I was really excited about that!
Woke up around 6:30 and again didn’t get out of bed until 7 watched the chickens mill around us for a bit ate our sandwiches and drank our sugar milk with a hint of Nescafe. That day we were supposed to do everyday village things with our family, but really that translated to a lot of the Mali Chill and a little work. We cleaned a dish a piece with soap, water, and… dirt. They use dirt to help scrape off the food that is stuck on the bowl. Then we swept a hut. We sat back down for a bit. Then we went to the market. Came home. Sat down for a bit. Pounded some corn. Sat down for a bit more. Minnie and Rachel came to visit us. It was then time for lunch and they forced Minnie and Rachel to eat, but then only let us eat a little bit of the ‘toh’ again even though I specifically asked for it. Then we went and ateblack-eyed- pea paste, that I could not stomach. Then we went to the Case because Laurel and I needed water. Soloman kind of left us there so we went on a grand hunt for cookies and coke, both of which we found after looking for about 30 minutes in just about every store on either side of the main road. We sat down under this crazy tree and drank our coke and ate our sketchy cookies. Then we decided that since we hadn’t seen Soloman that we should just try and find our way back, which we did quite successfully. Then we worked on homework, hung out with the men and children, and drank tea. While doing this we noticed that a large blister on the bottom of one of the kids foot had popped and was going to get infected. So we pulled out our first aid kits and Laurel cleaned and bandaged it. Then we continued to do the Mali chill, though we moved to sit with the women because most of them were hanging out while one of them got their hair done. Then we ‘bathed’ and sat back down with them. For dinner they served us two things: Potatoes fried in palm oil and meat, and some weird bean thing. I liked the meat and potatoes, while Laurel liked the other thing so we ate what we preferred. They didn’t quite understand but it wasn’t that big a deal, because I think we ate the most that night out of all of them. Then we sat a bit more and went to bed. What I have failed to mention is that where they put my bed when I was alone is different from where they placed my bed when Laurel was there. The first was much more comfortable. The second had a dip to one side and a rock in the middle of it. So basically I slept between a rock and a hard place. But my body seemed to curve just right so when I was on my side it wasn’t too bad!
We woke up at 6:30 and got out of bed then because we wanted pictures with people and of some of the fauna that we had been living with. So we went around taking pictures and we ate breakfast. Then we made the rounds again saying “K’an Be” which I am not sure how it translates exactly, but it is a way of saying goodbye. Then we set off to the Case with Soloman carrying our matts and mattresses and us our luggage. On the way there he told us that he would miss us, and we told him that we would miss him, though really I am so glad to be back with my Karabentas’!!! So when we had deposited our stuff we took a picture with him. It is also on Facebook. Then we discussed our assignments and what we had done the previous day. Then the mayor of Sanankoroba came and talked to us a bit. Then we did the Mali Chill until Karamogo our driver came with the bus and we all piled in. Then we went to Amandines!! It is this bizarre but blissful western/french restaurant. The cheese on most things is gruyere, and the icing on cakes is butter, but we always look forward to Amandines. Then we went home and I rejoiced being back with my family!!! I also took a super long pail bath and washed my hair and scrubbed everything twice!
After that I hung out watch Shallow Hal dubbed in French chatted with my family ate dinner and went to a concert at the French Cultural Center (CCF).
Saturday I went to the Tailor and am getting three outfits and two skirts made for about 13 thousand CFA which is $30! I am so excited! Then I chilled and went to another concert at the CCF.


*Side note about tea. It is a special kind of green tea that is made EVERYWHERE in Mali, by every young to middle aged man in Mali. It is made while doing the Mali Chill. The Mali Chill consists of sitting in these special chairs that end up giving you a wedgie when you sit in them for too long. Mostly men do the Mali Chill, men and white visitors. They make tea all day and discuss everything and nothing. They make the tea either with lots of sugar or no sugar. And serve it in small glasses, and the tea itself needs to have about a half inch head of foam on it before it is deemed ready.
**Plastic kettles are used by Muslims to wash their hands arms, feet, face, nose, ears, and eyes. They are also used in the bathroom in lieu of toilet paper. It is etiquette here to wash ones face before greeting anyone. Though I don't really do that... oops....

A day in my life!

So since the last time I wrote y'all I ahve been getting more and more used to things here in Mali.  I have a set routine: I wake up around 6:30 in the morning and get dressed, brush my teeth, wash my face and if I am brave enough go to the bathroom.  Then I say good morning and good bye to my host mother and walk to the place where the bus picks us up and take us to school. One morning I forgot at least three things, and another morning I go flicked off while crossing the street!! I laughed because I didn't really expect to get flicked off in Mali!! Then we get to school and eat breakfast which is bread with some kind of laughing cow cheese, jam and butter.  Also I drink Lipton Yellow Label Tea which is so good! I guess I am just a tea snob in the states and so I never looked at Lipton, but it is now definitely one of my favorites. Then as we eat breakfast we listen to history lectures, or Field Study Seminar lectures, or have a Bambara lesson. Then we eat lunch! Lunch is exciting because it is always different.  Though the base is usually rice, the sauce is different.  The sides are usually these tiny flavorful meatballs and plantains.  And some days we even get black-eyed-peas!!!  We drink a lot of water because there is no air conditioning and it is the same temperature as South Texas in August.  We eat lunch on a terrace on the roof, because it is cooler and cool.  Then we go back down and have French class.  French has been fun because all we do is talk about our families and what we do with them in french.  After classes have finished this week we have been going to different places in Bamako. Monday we went to a market type place called Le Artisana; Tuesday we went to Le Musée National and saw a bunch of artifacts from Mali's past.  Then Wednesday we went to the French cultural center and looked around the library.  When I get home I usually try and do some homework, the past few days I have been going on the roof for that because not many people go up there during the day.  Then I go down and hang out with my family.  For dinner they usually bring me a plate of whatever they decided I should eat with a spoon, and I eat wherever I am.  Then I hang around a bit then take a bath. I have told y'all about my bathing experiences, but I am getting better with the roaches.  You just have to make a load enough sound with a big enough movement close enough to them... yeah... This trip will definitely make me a stronger person in that respect!!! Then I change in my bedroom and go up on the roof, read a little, say Compline and then stare at the stares until I go to sleep.  It's kind of awesome!!  Well that is all I have time for right now! Remember if you have any questions ask and I will answer them!!
~Thaddeus

I AM alive I swear!!!

Wow. I am here and it is so different! Before I let you read the rest of this I want to tell all of you how much I miss you!! I also wish that I could communicate with y’all more but using my cellphone to call is very expensive and there are a few internet cafes but I was in a small village named Siby that is about an hour outside of Bamako that we were at for several days and then we went directly to our families, so I really haven’t had anytime to find an internet café much less the time to sit and talk to even one person for a decent amount of time! On a slightly related note… Being the good Episcopalian that I am I, of course I brought my Book of Common Prayer!! It has been a great help in reminding me that everything will be okay, I am here for a reason, and no matter how difficult things are now, they will get better!
I have a completely different name here that my host family and the professors in my program use. It is Aichata Karabenta. So I am having a little bit of an identity crisis because no one calls me Natalie, they ask what my American name is but of course they are going to use the Malian name.
Things that are crazy different:
~The bathroom- area- place, I can’t describe it so here is a picture:

You have to remember to bring in a kettle full of water when you use the bathroom, or a pail of water when you want to take a bath. I have forgotten both several times… yeah they just kind of looked at me and then went and talked about me, which is fine, because I would totally do the same thing with someone who was staying in America.
!WARNING GRAPHIC Bathroom CONTENT AHEAD!
So Pooping in this type of facility is very difficult and no one is going to show you how, so you get to figure it out for yourself… now my body is so not used to squatting and pooping. Even when camping we have a seat, so I am in a strange place using strange facilities, eating food, albeit good, that I am not used to… It has been difficult to poop… UNTIL the first morning I was determined to poop, so I went into that strange smelling place got myself into position… and I won’t go into that much detail but I was unsuccessful at first until mid-try I notice two copper antennae sticking out of a drainage hole across the room… yes my old enemy the Cockroach was waiting for me in Africa! It never fully appeared, but the thought was enough to… you guessed it scare the shit out of me! Just thought I would share that with y’all!!
!END GRAPHIC BATHROOM CONTENT!
~You eat with your hands here, which is easy when you sit on the floor, but when you are put in a chair for whatever reason, things get difficult, and it is hard to know when you are really full because you are bending over to eat the rice and sauce from the communal bowl… I am okay with the communal bowl, it’s like eating Chinese food, and the food is really good! But my hands are TOTALLY not cut out for eating with because you need to be able to wipe the rice off of the back of your fingers and my thumb does not reach that far over! So I end up licking the rice of the back of my hands because I don’t want to use two hands because then I would have two dirty hands.
~There is no air conditioning. I realized that it is about the same temperature here as in a Texas summer… but we have air conditioning. You know that saying that Texans invented the air condition? They should have been good Christians and shipped that over here!!! Anyway the wind helps A LOT, though at night the house gets VERY warm, and they noticed this the first night I was here when I was getting ready for bed, and they told me that the roof was a lot cooler, so I went up there and you get a nice view of Malian rooftops, y’all know how I love a good roof scene, so I was sitting up there and looking at the stars and the sunset, when Mimi the youngest of the main family here, brought me a chair to sit on and we talked. Then Kante’ the girl I share a room with brought up our bed and mosquito netting, and told me that we were going to sleep up there… IT WAS AMAZING!!!! I love sleeping on the roof!! K Whoever is reading this and we are together for a night and it is not raining or too humid we should set up some mosquito netting and SLEEP UNDER THE STARS!!!! Mosquito netting is better than tents! OMG the beach with mosquito netting Peeps et Fam lets do this!!
~Disciplining small children. There are these two ADORABLE children a boy, Bebo and a girl, Yaya. The boy is always getting into trouble, but not for breaking things or disappearing or spilling things. He gets in trouble for talking to me. Or even being too close and looking at me… it is very disconcerting. I think they consider it impolite or something like that. While they don’t hit him hard, they hit him a lot. But he is so cute he does not like to wear clothes here is a picture of him and his sister:

~There are so many flies here. But nobody seems to care… it freaks me out when they are crawling on the uncooked food, but then I realize that they will cooked the food because they have too for me.
~Public Service Announcements on the problems with Female Circumcision.

I love my family and the group. We had our first day of class and it went okay, my french is getting so much better!!!  I am going to try and play with the kids more because they are too cute to not. OH and btws Lady Gaga is very popular here along with Micheal Bolton.... and Barbie Girl.... they wanted me to translate Just Dance... I tried to tell them that she was drunk... it didn't quite translate.

My family is  really cool, but they don't let me do much except wash my own underwear.  So I read and write and talk to my family. That is all for now. Ask me questions and I will answer them.
~Thaddeus

The events leading up to the Great Sleep

This is from an e-mail I sent my dad just without all the personal stuff.

Dakar has a smell to it. It's the same smell that Mexico has, and that the Mission District in San Francisco has. It reminds me of home, but in a way that doesn't make me homesick.

So we board the plane in D.C. and we are sitting there all ready with our seat backs and tray table in the upright position, and all our baggage and things have been stowed, when the captain comes on and says something about de-icing the plane and that it takes two mixtures blah blah blah and we sit... and then this truck comes with a cherry picker on it and from the top of the cherry picker there is the huge stream of liquid just power washing the snow and ice off of the plane. I watch it for awhile and then I fall asleep fully expecting to wake up in the air or on the way to it. No such luck! I wake up to a hot dry cabin full of babies crying and some thoroughly annoyed people. The captain comes on again and tells everyone to chill out we are in the largest plane on earth and it's going to take awhile to get all the ice off. He also tells us that they are going for the second mixture and that hopefully that won't take too long. So we sit some more... Eventually we get off the ground, but in the process of doing so you can watch the plane itself take off from a camera that is on the tail of the plane. Now as the plane is leaving the ground or returning to it they turn the camera off, but before during and after the flight you can have a birds eye view of your plane.

So I get to Dakar airport and it not a U.S. airport by any stretch pf the imagination. There are no jetways, though there are shuttle to take you from your plane to the airport. The airport consists of an entry point where you either go through customs or straight to baggage claim. When you go through customs you of course have to fill out the card that tells the essentials of your life story. Within this process that no one ever expects, so no one has a pen, unless you are neurotic like me and have three, I meet the SIT Senegal group. They are nice and looked just as clueless as I did!!! Anyway I get there and it is CRAZY!!! I have no way of explaining to you with out using my hands so that will just have to wait. But a nice porteur (porter) helped me get my bag and get all my stuff through security. This is where it gets sketchy. I told him I need to get to the Novotel shuttle and he says okay. So we get to the exit and he walks up to a woman in regular clothing standing next to a sign that says 'Novotel' We confirm again that that is where I am going and that that is where she is taking me, Then she takes me to go sit in some random chairs by another set of doors and tells me to wait here because she is picking up someone else. Now these chairs are plastic porch chairs, and look so dirty!!! But I sit in them because I figure that if it was a scam that I wouldn't be sitting in these chairs in front of security guards. So I sit there and wait for her to meet the other guy. So eventually this guy comes though he is not the guy that she was looking for, she doesn't realize it until we get to the shuttle and then
 we spend time trying to figure out where the hell he is going. What is vool about this guy though is that he works for the U. S. State Dept. and is in Senegal to do a short broad study of human migration and climate change! We chatted about what each one of us is here for and that was nice.

So I get to the hotel check in write my Dad an e-mail telling him the above and that I forgot my dictionary and plugs.  After that I take a shower and after that I get back on the computer to Skype with my Dad.  After that I try to decide if I want food or sleep more, so I decide to order food so that I can have the energy for a thorough sleep.  So I order Thiébou diene á la sénégalaise (fish and rice Senegalese style), and for dessert I ordered Crème au caramel (Flan or Caramel custard dessert).  After I have ordered I sit down on the bed and fall asleep. Literally just fell asleep.  I wake up thirty minutes later wondering where my food is and then I here a knock at the door! SO this food was AMAZING!!!! Though they don't de-bone the fish so you have to be careful. It was so good, I had to stop myself from eating too much, and the dessert was good old flan! It was nice to have something familiar for my favorite part of the meal!

Then after I put the tray in the hall to be picked up I lay on the bed thinking that I will wake up in like two hours... Around five o'clock I wake up go to the bathroom and fall back asleep... then at like seven I wake up and get under the sheets... then around twelve I wake up go to the bathroom read for two hours then go back to sleep... then at like six in the morning I turn off my alarm and decide to go back to sleep, then at seven thirty I decide to get up and go eat breakfast. I take the elevator down and walk into the restaurant.  I find a small table for two and put my book down to go get a plate.
Breakfast was a buffet...
It had four different meats two pork and two non-pork.  It had potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes and what I think were eggs... They were really runny and I guess scrambled... with cheese? I don't know but they were not the eggs that I was hoping for.  The bacon was super thick and that was all very strange... but the tea was plain Twinning English Breakfast Tea!!! That made my day so I got a brave plate of all these strange forms of my favorite breakfast foods, and tried a little bit of each.  I go back to my table to find a man sitting at the table I had put my book down on!! I go and get my book and he looks at me and I say "C'est ma livre" and he kind of nods and I wander off in search of another small table. I didn't really like any of the food I had gotten, so I went back for a plate of bread, cheese, yogurt and orange juice.  I ate most of that, and I got full pretty quickly.  So I signed my bill and came back to the room! 

What is kind of neat is that when you walk by the staff of the hotel they say "bonjour madam" to you! It is super cool!!  Anyway I need to get some reading done, before I get back on-line!

~Thaddeus