"Anw be deli ke."

"Let us pray."
I attended mass today in the big town. The church was about 10 times the size of the one I attend in village and was packed with parishioners. In my village the women all sit on the right pews and men sit on the left, but here its reversed; anyway men and women do not sit with eachother during mass. The pews are wooden benches with no backs, also we do not kneel during anytime of the mass. My church in village is quite plain on the inside and the same goes for the larger church except that behind the altar there is a large carved wooden picture of Jesus and the Disciples that looks really cool. I forgot my camera so next time I'm here for mass I am going to take pictures. Right after mass I set on my quest to find a Bambara prayer book. I was directed to a man outside selling rosaries, rings, and books. Unfortunately they were all in French, he did have some sweet hologram ring that alternated between a picture of Mary and Jesus, but I refrained from the purchase and was directed to another man (Ji Bee). He told me to sit, so I did. I explained again what I was looking for, I guess they have no Bambara prayer books at the church or maybe none for sale, because he gave me a number to another man named Laurent and had some girls escort me to his house. He wasn't home so the search continues for a Bambara prayer book. I'd like to be able to recite the Our Father in Bambara during mass rather than whisper the words in English.
Well this morning I got a call from my post office guy, and he said I have a package to pick up. So right after I left Laurent's house with no book, I went to get my package to lift my spirits. Thanks Rosa I love the shirt cannot wait to wear it this coming week at the Segou Music Festival.

Happy Face
UCSC Grateful Slug shirt

Also cannot wait to read the letter!
I called my homologue (work counterpart) on the way back to the Peace Corps house and she gave me good news. When I get back from the Festival we are going to another town on my list of towns in which I will be working, I have been to 2 of the 5 towns that would like to work with a volunteer. I only know one towns work schedule so for every Wednesday and Friday I have been going to this town to sit, chat, and watch them work. The villages have machines used for the purpose of grinding shea nuts into a paste that will be beaten and heated to extract the shea butter. I noticed many women use methods to store and produce shea butter that can affect the quality, so eventually I'd like to request a formation (presentation) on shea collection, storage, and production methods. All in due time though, I would like to meet regularly with all the different women's associations in all the villages so we can schedule a large meeting in my centrally located village. My work counterpart is the president of an organization that is connected with all the women's associations from the smaller villages. Maybe we'll have a soap making party, we'll see what happens.
Here are some picks of the shea machine work place.

left: shea machine; center: storage room; right: my bicycle

shea nuts

By noon the area is filled with pots of nuts. And this is all just one small step in the long process of making shea butter.

Soon I'll be paying children to fan me with banana leaves

Why is this considered cold season? And what am I going to do during hot season?
Plan A: Sit under the mango tree, with a bucket of water nearby to splash myself, and children surrounding me with banana leaves fanning continuosly.
Plan B: suffer...
Plan C: My body will be adjusted to the temperature and it won't put a damper on my daily activities.

In town now a few days ago I went to a women's association gathering to make soap. I did not really partake in much of the process just because there was so many women and not much to be done. So I settled on chatting and being the photographer. Of course, before we could get started on some work we had to get some snacks to share with the ladies. So another volunteer and I headed down the street to pick up some peanuts. Then we were interrupted by another woman making a grand entrance with a used car recently purchased for use by the association. A lot of excitement ensued and we gathered in front of the vehicle to take pictures. So many people surrounded the vehicle it could not really be seen in the photos.

They started the fire with wood chips and plastic bags. We were going to make 3 differents types of soap; cucumber, henna, and honey. First step was melting 5 liters of shea butter, 3 cucumbers were grated and squeezed for their juice to make 1/2 kilo. I'm not sure how many days before the lye was sitting in the 5 liters of water, but by the way it looked it could have been over a week or two. After the shea butter was melted they moved it into a tub to cool and added another 5 kilos to the cooking pot, each soap mixture needed 5 kilos of shea butter.The whole process went rather smoothly and just took up about three hours of the day.

cucumber juice

melting process

Once the shea butter was filtered through a cloth and cooled, 4-5 liters of coconut oil were added along with cucumber juice/henna/ or honey, some perfume, and the water with lye. Then it was quickly mixed well and poured out into containers to set.

It was well worth the trip into town to see the soap making process. When I get back to site I'll be more comfortable making soap or doing a formation having seen the whole process start to finish. Soon I want to also make some shea pommade cream for moisturizer.
The first weeks back at site after being gone so long for in-service training and holiday hiking left my house a complete disaster filled with cobwebs and dust. I spent the entire day cleaning, moving furniture, sweeping, dusting, unpacking. I arrived New Year's Eve and spent that night watching the television with the family. I was invited to an event at a local politician's house, but declined because I was tired and wanted to spend New Year's with my host family. There was a live broadcast from Bamako of singers performing, a few seconds before midnight a man came onstage interrupted the singer and soon after said "Bonne Annee" Happy New Year. Well that was anti-climatic, no ball drop. In the states I enjoyed the televised New Year's because they would broadcast cities celebrating around the world, but I was bringing in the New Year hours before the U.S. My host-brother ran into his room and burst out with matches and some firecrackers. I saw a few in the night sky and heard a variety of different pops and crackles around the village. The next morning I got a call from my lovely family celebrating the New Year at Nanny & Pa's.

"Na yan, sanni ke!"

"Come here, and buy!"
"gato beyi gato beyi... ji sumaya sumaya... bi-naani bi-naani... toubabu toubabu... joli joli?..." among many other sounds, smells, and a rainbow of colors mixed by what vendors are selling or what people are wearing. Men mostly wear western styled clothes (pants and a shirt) while the women wear pagnes (long wrap skirt), a top with usually same material as the pagne if not a t-shirt, and a head wrap with the same material. I've gotten so accustomed to going through the busy market to get what I need and go, I forgot how fresh and exciting it was when I went the very first time at my homestay site.
It was myself, another volunteer, our language trainer, and a local woman from the village. It was by mere chance and luck that we got a ride to the market village down the main road towards Bamako, because another volunteer in my village had a severe migraine so we took Peace Corps transport along with him. We were dropped off about 25 minutes down the road, and walked from the main road to a side road that crossed a bridge. There was trash everywhere, crowds, and a prominent smell of fish. Below the bridge people were crossing through and fishing. We entered the market area, blocked by the sun by numerous tarps set up by vendor after vendor creating a huge blanket area of shade. Tomato seller, hot pepper, onions, peanut butter, tomato paste, salt, eggplant, etc. etc. intermittenly there will be an occassional shopkeeper working out of a small shed were you can buy a variety of things all in one location. This was my first experience in Mali were I grocery shopped, my tutor told me to buy mayonaisse and cooking oil. I was so nervous I mixed up my greetings and looked like a fool in my broken Bambara, but I was understood with the help of my tutor and we got what we needed and moved on to the next item on our grocery list.
We walked in circles. If there was tomatoes next on the list, there were tomatoes at so many different vendors I didn't understand why we were passing them all by, they looked good and ripe. But the local woman with us knew the market and knew the people with whom she bought the tomatoes, the fish, bananas, oil, plaintains, etc. from. I understand this now, because I walk the extra 5 minutes across my market to get to my garlic/onion man, who always sells me a kilo of onions for below market price and sometimes tosses in extra garlic. I have a trusted butcher; an old woman whom I like and only sells one thing I need which I can get anywhere in market, but I buy from her just so I can say hello and see her smile; the pharmeceutical man who likes me to sit and chat; the shea oil guys who are always ready to make a joke; the banana women who think I should by more bananas; the place with good rice and beans; and the occassional friend I run into wondering how my day is, is the market good, where have I been, did I have a good night sleep, how is your family, how is the market, may your prayers be answered, have a peaceful afternoon, see you later, greet them for me.
The hardest part in market that first day was understanding the money system. First they tell me the price in French, well great, but I'm American I don't know any French tell me in Bambara. When it comes to prices, shopping and selling, Malians love repetition. They say "duuru duuru", I think five five, okay... so does that mean 5 CFA, 10 CFA, 25 CFA, 5 tomatoes for 25 CFA, I'm still confused. Also the whole money system is a challenge, because it requires multiplying everything by five. When they say "tan tan" which translates "ten ten", you then have to times ten by five and the price is actually 50 CFA, but rather than saying 50 they say 10. 20 is 100 CFA (mugan), 30 is 150CFA (bi saaba), 40 is 200CFA (bi naani), and 100 is 500CFA (keme). Repeating the price is just how its done, to make sure you heard right the first time.

Once you reach 5000CFA it is now waa kelen (1000). So 7475CFA spoken in market is "waa kelen, keme naani, ni bi segin tan ani duuru", I get annoyed with extra duurus and bi duurus in market, because it makes it a hassle to get change, so when I buy high priced items I always try to keep it simple and rounded to the nearest 500CFA. Also you need to have a good amount of change with you when you want to go to market, because people are not going to be able to give you change for a 1000CFA bill if you want to buy 100CFA of tomatoes (which can usually get you 5 tomatoes). Just this evening I went to a boutique where there you would expect the owner to be able to give you change, but no I'll have to wait until tomorrow or the next time I need something from the boutique to get my change back. No worries, i'll come back.

Waati te n bolo

Sorry no time to write, but a lot to write about will be back soon.
Love,
Jacqueline

Holiday Hike in Dogon Country

The landscape was breathtakingly beautifully. Mainly because we were all out of breath by the time we reached the peak of each cliff due to our guides incredible long legs and ability to climb at an alarming rate in flip-flops that were two sizes too small. I began my hoilday season by spending a few nights in Bamako to get checked out by the medical staff and relax, unfortunately because I stayed in Bamako immediately after Peace Corps training I did not get the free transport to Sevare, to make my travels a little easier. On my own I managed fine though and got out of Bamako in time to meet up with volunteers in Sevare the night before we were to travel to Bandiagara to get ready for our Holiday Hike. On the 24th we began our journey with our guide Mamadou.

Group 1 Day 1

Climbing rocks to get a bird's eye view of the village

Morning of day 1 we hiked about 11 km and breaked for lunch and a nap in a small village. After the heat of the day wore off we explored parts of the town and meandered our way across a mountain to make it to the village we were to stay for the night. That night we met the dugutigi (village chief) and as a gift gave him kola nuts and tea. After dinner he organized an impromptu dance performance which was very entertaining, but we were all extremely tired. They prepared the dance floor by watering the ground, to prevent the dust from rising everywhere from their quick dance movements. They move their feet in very quick movements and slightly bend down swaying their arms moving to the beat of the drums. The men and women dance in slightly different styles. I wish it wasn't so dark otherwise I would have recorded some of the dances. We saw the moon rise and slept on the roof of some huts under some mosquito nets they provided and a mattress. It was a little cold the first night, but not as cold as the next. Day 1= 14km

Animism~Christianity~Islam
Each rock represents a religious practice in the village

The next morning we were served pate (malian fried dough) and bread with jam and the choice of tea or instant coffee. Then we set out around 8 am for a 10 km hike to our lunch destination in Tele. Our guide said it was going to be a flat hike today. It was flat, but very sandy. I think we enjoyed the up and down more than walking in sand for 4 hours. The village Tele was awesome after an amazing grilled chicken lunch and nap we hiked up into the cliff dwellings. Our guide told us Dogon people settled there 4 centuries before Christ.

It was incredible to climb through the remains of a village resting on the side of a cliff. They were very ingenious architects, I tried to imagine an ordinary day living in the mountain climbing across or around houses to see a friend, or playing a game of hide-and-seek in all the small spaces between the mountain and mud buildings. We then left that site to walk another 4 km in sand to reach a fellow PCVs village to enjoy a shower and christmas dinner with a big group of volunteers. The village knew we were coming ahead of time so they put together a play to present after our dinner. This night we were given only mattresses on the roof and it was really really cold. Another volunteer and I kept waking in the middle of the night asking eachother if they were still freezing wondering why they didn't give us more blankets. So we shared a mattress and sandwiched ourselves between the other mattress, still cold, but could sleep more than 20 minutes at a time.

The next day we had an even bigger breakfast than the day before, because the volunteer at the site made special requests. We got to choose from rice cereal, moni (mali millet porridge), bread & jam, and tea or coffee. We only had 6 km left before the end of our tour through Dogon and our last village stop was Djiguibombo. I was very happy with my decision to go to on the hike for Christmas. I did not have time to travel to Djenne or Mopti, but there is always next year.

2011 is days away. I have yet to think of a New Years resolution, so I will brainstorm ideas. What is your New Year's resolution?
I went into town this morning to go to the bank and post office. I finally got to send out postcards I've been carrying with me for two weeks. I also received a package from a good friend (Thank you a bunch Nancy). I am going back to site tomorrow, excited to celebrate the New Year with my new home in village. Although I miss home very much and listened to the voice messages of the Christmas calls I received from family while waiting in the bank. I totally cried, because I love my family and want to squeeze them like a tube of toothpaste. Happy New Year!!!