shotty observations, poorley transitioned from previous blog

Its difficult to call the Malian approach to hygiene an approach, accepting rather that a skirting or diversionary effort would be a more apt description. including myself amongst the population, I say that WE live in villages clogged with sewage, animal waste, and other such unsavory detritus and that WE live comfortably amongst these things because WE don’t know better. The discrepancies between what a Malian considers ritually hygienic, and acceptable in terms of care, and disposal of waste are vast. This is a group of people that wash themselves regularly, stopping at seemingly any and all occasion to poor water on their feet, and hands out of small, plastic, tea kettle-like pots called salidaka’s. swishing water in their mouth and spitting to finalize the gesture ( and all Malians are excellent spitters) they perform this act seemingly 5 or 6 or more times a day in addition to a full bucket bath taken before dinner. The behavior borders on idiosyncratic, almost quirky. No trip on public transport would be complete, it seems, without the driver stopping to wash and swish at any opportune time. This isn’t a behavior limited by any class, or gender stipulations, men women and children all do it, and all with the grace of the seasoned performer as though it were a survival trait, a line well rehearsed to the point of being inseparable from other biological process. Assuming, as they say, that cleanliness IS in fact next to godliness, than Malians are scrambeling to rent a time share in the big man’s neighboorhood. They wash so compulsively it almost seems a subconscious resignation to the fact that while there skin may stay damp and anointed, there terrestrial realm is in shambles. I mean no degradation by simply pointing out that the sanitation services we enjoy at home and almost come to take for granted, aren’t even fleeting notions here, they are completely absent and unacknowledged. I have only been here for 6 months, granted, but I have never, not even once, seen a Malian pick up a piece of trash in any feigning effort at cleanliness or beautification. I suppose that’s not to say it doesn’t happen but there’s no precedent to do so. It becomes easier at this point to start to make a lot of connections relating to the presumed stagnation or ennui inherent in the capacity to want for change here. Rural Malians live by the notion that subsistence farming and Allah’s divine intervention are really the only necessities in their lives, and not necessarily in that order. It is true and noble, the efforts which Malians put into their own survival, indomindable spirits all, though Imagine what you or someone like you would do if you found a small child, three or four years old, wandering un-attended around the streets of your town playing with an empty pesticide pump or a used dropper syringe, yet that’s a familiar site in a rural village. Substitute the aforementioned garbage with any other of the myriad varieties of garbage that one might find on the ground and that’s a typical and readily ignored scenario in the country. How then do Malians avoid what you would assume would be a rampant and constant influx of disease. It’s not necessarily true that they do. Figures ARE misleading as to the average life span. It is low in Mali but saying simply that, at 28, I am roughly middle aged here isn’t quite accurate. The average Malian woman has 7 children. For a morbid, yet oddly practical reason they do so because the infant death rate here is so high. This is a fact largly responsible for skewing the figures on average life span which I believe stands at 53. Allah of course wills that a child be taken from a mother, usually because of poor nutrition or disease, with disturbing frequency. There is in fact a tradition of not naming a baby until 7 full days, presumably to justify the effort. There is also the thought here that of course the more kids you have the more help you’ll have in the fields. Like I said, morbid, yet oddly practical or at least adapted to the stark reality of their situation. In strange similarities, the functionality of the Malian health care infrastructure mirrors our own in America.it seems each in our own ways, we are making health care difficult and almost nonexistent for the poorest amongst us. A staggering majority of Malians will sooner visit an herbal, natural healer before seeing a ‘’modern doctor’’. The primary motivating factor there is the cost, that and possibly a misguided or ornery assumption that the expenditure isn’t worth it if Allah has willed otherwise. This being the case, many people, specifically women and children, go untreated because the husband refuses to pay for treatment, weather he’s nodding to gods will or simply not willing. These aren’t unusual cases, though it should be noted that those with the money or the foresight do seek western style medicine if they can. I think it’s worth noting as well, that I am aware of only one case of malaria in my village. ( accepting that there could be many more) the odd thing about this particular case is that the child who has contracted the disease lives in one of the villages richest families, a family that can afford med’s though rarely are the right meds given. Headache pills, expectorants, stomach medicine, pain relievers all meted out, all seemingly as a cure-all for those with the money to buy in. Most average sized villages have a ‘’medical unit’’, with a ‘’doctor’’ though the medical training of many Malian doctors in dubious at best. As well, every week at the average market you can find the medicine man, or multiple men, with carts or tables full of off brand….very off brand, medicines that people can buy. pills, powders, syrups and creams, The packaging is usually comically bad with limited instruction on how to use the medicine, and I know that the instructions are limited because they are often in English, a difficult language for the average rural Malian to read, or understand! I am unsure of how many illnesses have been perpetuated by bad packaging or general lack of information, but I have personally been offered Ben-gay to both eat and put on an open wound, and I have been asked what a desiccant package was and whether or not one was to eat it. These were western meds left behind in my village by visitors and I have no Idea how long they were being misused before I was approached. I was approached by a traditional healer with these meds, pleased at having acquired something exotic, and obviously foreign. Traditional healing in Mali IS generously acknowledged by the government, with money being put into researching both the actual healing properties of the plants used, and the proliferation of the medicine’s produced, making them more available to the average Malian, in fact, the average malian goes first for herbal, natural drugs, nearly 80% of the time over western style meds, and mostly out of neccessity . In Bamako, and regiona capitals, there are gonernment funded labs devoted to the research and usage of these plants, and a concerted effort id being made to amiliorate the practive of using herbal meds. This is a relatively progressive effort by the government, when you stop to imagine a time in which the US government would explore the validity of herbs over pharmaceuticals. Having yet to get a lot of solid information about what plants are actually being used, and not recognizing any myself, I have had several concoctions, teas mostly, made from boiled plants, sugar is always added, and they are usually tasty, most seemingly aimed at some variety of stomach ailment. I have seen traditional healing take on an even more ritualistic and hypothetical tone. I have seen sick children brought to my host father, a healer, and smeared in a loose grid pattern, with shea butter, all the while the healer’s mouth making tiny patting, or puffing motions, as if to expel the illness or draw it into himself. With no verification as to whether there was any subsequent change in the child, I am left to simply assume on blind faith that what’s practiced, works. This position I think, is the only position that most Malians can comfortablly take. Faith based medicine. Faith as medicine or a culture of practiced faith, with a faith in cultural practice. Malians do most things out of neccesity first, and personal care is no exception.

cccooolldddd

This week’s tale is a tale of change, bandied about over campfires and funeral pyres around the world for eons. A tale of woe, a tale of mystery, and surprise. A tale of inadequate insulation. As we wander our sunny village streets and draw grimy water from our wells, as we tell just one more bean joke under the stately Malian sun, it stalks. Behind the papaya tree, gold and green in a pale afternoon sun. Seeping in through the cracks in our houses or the cracks in my resolve. Insipid and yet obvious, proud and un yielding this monster of consistency, this creature of habit looms, lays in wait until her number is drawn. And according to the “Year of cute kitties” calander I’m looking at, the time is neigh. to the accustomed yet ill equipped Malian or worse still the incredulous volunteer, this behemoth of change strikes with more shock and awe than a George Bush themed weapons rodeo, eliciting a unison and universal cry across the arid sub-Saharan plain…..NENE BE NENE BE!! That means its cold people! And surly you mustn’t doubt that I am as shocked as you are. Mali and her ‘’seasons’’ can be loosely classified around what’s going in or coming up out of the ground. We do have ‘’wet season’’ and wet it is, rain in torrential and steady bursts, relative to the 7 months of the year when it doesn’t rain, It can seem pretty damp. There is also ‘’ hot season’’, and no that’s not some kind of passive aggressive Malian irony, there is a time of year that is decidedly hotter than the rest, temperatures I’m told top off at around 120 degrees. (Ill spare mentioning that that is farenheit, if it were Celsius we’d all be dead.) Yet this does leave room for the inevitable fall from grace, or stumble into absurdity that is ‘’Cold Season’’. It’s a relative term to be sure, with day time highs still hovering in the mid eighties, but at night, when she strikes, well…you just don’t see it coming.
I sleep outside. I sleep outside in a bug tent, placed on top of a foam mattress. This is preferable to sleeping inside in as much as my house has the exact physical and thermodynamic properties of a large pizza oven, the kind found at your trendy bistro, or lunch time hot-spot. Sleeping outdoors is a presumed and practiced necessity for anyone living in West Africa during at least 7/10ths of the year. The heat lulls you at first in to a false sense of calm, tempting you to believe that the air you breathe knows not from cool. How could a cruel and unforgiving sun yield so much of its power to orbital shift and particle deceleration. How could it get so damn cold this close to the equator? I heard it was coming…’’its coming’’ they said, that’s what I heard. Yet, having forgotten that a certain potent patent clerk’s theory of relativity was not also relative in its application, I was rendered mildly unawares as to the extremes to which these desert-esque environs can swing. I awoke one night unsure of the source of the restless, sleepless hours past, when I realized I was cold. A novelty at first, and one I took note of with fine accord. “ahhh cold season huh, livin’ the life here’’ yet several more restless hours later, sweating profusely under two heavy wool blankets (I might mention now that we were issued wool blankets and a great laugh was had by all… at the time) I dared not expose my skin to the sub-sixty degree weather outside at risk of a mild chill, the shivers, or worse..Being uncomfortable! Huh, I guess it is all relative.
Ok, ok trust me it’s colder than it sounds. We Americans, even ones of southern origin are tempered by a deciduous climate and longer, more resolute exposure to cold, so you’d think that after weeks of stifling heat, that a night in the fifties (just guessing at that temp) would be a welcomed relief, and as the evening cools, it is.
I wandered into Kalifa’s compound, around 7:30 for my usual night time glad hand, how’s the family type visit, but Kalifa wasn’t in his usual spot, brewing tea from a plant he calls ShokoroJe, or ‘’old white bean’’. The kids, sitting on an old animal skin, studying introductory biology in French by oil lamp and seemingly unfazed by the tempature, being shirtless and full of guile, directed me to the door of kalifas room. The entrance was draped over with a thin, pale blue cloth, embroidered with maroon stitching. I pulled it back and went inside. Kalifa lay bundled up under a floral print fleece blanket, next to a small metal cook stove, the glowing orange embers casting a pallor over the room. “Kalifa, good evening” “ahh Sidiki, good evening, my health might not be good” “oh, Kalifa, you sick, I’m sorry!” “no, no I’m not sick, but I might be later, it’s SO cold!!’’ well, as I had trotted over in a t-shirt, enjoying the sudden cool down from the heat of the day, I was struck with a strong sense of empathy and a false sense of security that I would regret later that night. I wished Kalifa well, and left quickly, my mind alive with possibilities. How cold will it get? Am I weak? Am I ready? Those kids didn’t seem to care, should I? Am I going to get sick? I hurried home to batten down the hatches, changing into long sleeves and pants, gathering blankets, and a light sleeping bag, I huddled into my tent, ready to brave the arctic night, but I only ended up fighting off the far less pleasant feeling of being sweaty hot and chillllllly cold at the same time. Ok, so I am still tinkering with the arrangement, less wool here, another shirt there, maybe I’ll get a stove like kalifa’s, I may even sleep inside, like a doughy pizza, waiting to crisp! Egad… weather wreaks havoc on the psyche, especially when you don’t see it coming.

a short note on reflective surfaces and markets

Those of us with an over arching sense of self and adherence to vanity, despite salient physical attributes to validate such behavior, may find life in peace corps Mali difficult. Those of us who harbor secret perfectionist leanings and are usually reticent to expose a learned skill or behavior until internally justified or approved may find life without mirrors a challenge. This begs the age old question like a poor man’s shoes need a polish: why? The answer is simply this; I CANT SEE MYSELF. Allow me to digress a moment to construct the backdrop for this puddle deep problem. I live in a small African village; I spend my day integrating myself into the friendly confines of this community in which I have been placed. Communication being key to integration, and speaking being tantamount to communication, I find myself daily, efforting to chat up the locals with my multitude of limited ways and means. I rise with the sun, I drink tea, and I note that the sound of a sheep braying is the dumbest sound on EARTH!!. I venture out of my mud house and around my village, trying to enjoy the simplicity and honesty that a tiny brusse village can deliver like few places on earth can. Yet as I lumber out and around the gridded, waste clogged streets, it seems as though somebody else comes out with me. From where my head usually sits, his feet look like mine and he wears my clothes. His gate is as steady and rightward leaning as mine, and his wants and needs seem equally as lofty and dire as mine. Yet, when he opens his mouth (as small as mine) what comes out isn’t mine. As if on the road from my inner dialogue to my larynx, a cloaked gang of simbionese liberators have hijacked my intent, and clearly in the late stages of Stockholm syndrome, my words agree with their captors and tumble out armed and shooting, like patty Hurst with a thesaurus. Yet they are shooting blanks, in other words, I talk dumb. It would be prudent at this point to remind the reader that I have been here a mere 105 days (who’s counting) and should feel proud of what I have accomplished, linguistically speaking (redundant?) Though I can’t help but loose myself to this sly, Bambara slinging avatar. Maybe it’s my penchant for visual stimulation, or 27 years spent in a flashbulb culture, whatever the case, I find my village notably lacking in reflective material. I admit to a certain level of vanity, possibly the fault of my Libran nature, and I suppose there’s irony in having the revelation that your sense of self is tied up in your reflection, reflected back to you through a lack of reflective surfaces. Whatever the case, I find that at the end of the day I am challenged to find new ways to reconnect myself with…myself. I forget what I look like and I can’t see my lips move, I can only hear the voice of the dullard saying ‘’my head goes bad’’ or ‘’ I buy people tonight’’ in dry, staccato bambara, and I am left I bit estranged. An affliction that will pass, or something to pass the time, I am not sure, but as long as this other me leaves my house every day, bumbling bambara, wearing my cloths and walking like I do, shouldn’t he at least like to know whether or not to wipe his nose or pick sorghum out of his teeth too.

I have debated the merits of buying a mirror for weeks now. A luxury item some would say, even, I admit a bit silly. Though it does make me wonder at the nature of perception and I certainly marvel at the loss of self I often experience by simply not being able to confirm, after a weak Bambara day, that my nose is still creased in the front or that I should have gotten braces a long time ago. What stops me from buying a mirror then? Now would be a good chance to describe Dougolo. This is the name of my market town, and this is where I spend my Saturdays. I wake up, early as usual, and trot over to Kalifas house (host dad) and wait there while we ready ourselves to bike to market. It’s about 9k away, but takes usually more than an hour to get there since the caravan I travel in runs an average age of about 65 (kalifa left without me last week and I went alone, but that’s neither here nor there.) We set out from village around 8am, the mornings are cool, especially now, but the road is long. It’s more of pass than a road really, in most places craggy, sandy, sometimes smooth surface rock exposes and it feigns at being paved. We amble northward, towards dougoulo, them on their uniform, cerulean blue, fixed gear, banana seat bikes, me on my elaborate, clearly ‘’not local’’ Peace Corps issued trek mountain bike. We don’t rush, we…we can’t rush really, so we don’t. Sometimes a bike chain falls off and we stop to place it back on the worn toothed gears that have made so many trips to market already. Maybe we slow to donkey carts blocking the road, or people, it’s a busy stretch of ‘’road’’ on market mornings, maybe we get stuck in the sand; the myriad reasons why patience is virtuous in Mali manifest themselves on market day. We arrive at the market which is usually still groaning to life, vendors setting out their wares, hanging tarpaulins and plastic to block the sun. Kalifa usually has some variety of business to attend to so we agree to meet at our usual spot, the herb seller at the front of the market. Take a moment now to picture a farmers market in the United States, A brusse African market is absolutely nothing like that. Barring the universal idea of capitalism, removing goods from circulation, there are few similarities to what you may have come to accept as ‘’a market’’. Brusse markets, mine specifically, are sprawling, hectare swallowing, gladiatorial thunder domes of buying and selling. Loud, chaotic, stinky (only by the fish sellers) and remarkably well functioning, they are charged with a special energy that is uniquely African. You can find basically everything you need in Dougolo, if it’s grown and eaten in Mali it’s probably there. If it’s cheap and made of plastic, it’s probably there. There’s a man selling large cook pots, he spends all day painting them silver with aluminum paint. There are rows of women frying dough in large vats, the sickly sweet smell of hot Shea butter and millet dough assail you as you walk in. Tea, shoes, dried fish, fabric, meat, potato’s everything that becomes essential to life is available here, even…..mirrors. Ok, essential? No. Shiny? Yes. I could buy a mirror. You can find them in dougolo, large, wood framed yet overpriced, and serious transportation risk, my bike being a bit of a rough ride as my perineum will tell you. And who knows, maybe this country will change me, redirect my sense of perception and allow me to look inward, move my gaze away from that blank wall were I have already hung the nail, and re-focus it on my potential; unseen, but always assumed. Or maybe ill crack (no pun intended) and overpay for that shiny, reflective piece of mind.