Our town

We don't actually live in Kayes proper. We live in a little town a few hours north of there. It is a dusty spot with lots of animals and not many trees. It tends toward the warm side. The folks in town are a bit more conservative than many other places in Mali. Sam often goes without a headwrap but that makes her the only woman in town without one. The men typically wear boubous, more so than in other places. That is by way of introduction for these pictures: Mark thinking "I can see Mauritania from here" and Sam with her counterpart walking down the main street of our town (young Luke Skywalker "bullseye"ing womp rats in his T-16 not pictured).

Ablo is O.K.

So, this is Ablo. He is the cutest kid to ever visit our training center. He is pictured here doing what he does best when he is not filling everyone's water bottles, washing his hands. So he has had a bit of a mishap. We returned to site the day after he and his mom. Before we got back he managed to sit down on a pot of sauce over an open fire and burned the hell out of his ass. One would think that this would mean he was lying around, crying a lot and being waited on hand and foot, having ice cream brought to him on the hour like King Midas and in the states one would be correct. This, however, is Mali. There neither any ice cream nor is there any compassion for pain to go around. He just limps around and asks where all the friends he made at Tubaniso are. "Where's Abdullaye? Where's Kadja? Where's Oumar? Where's Nana? Where's Aminata? Where's Kadi?" You get the picture. He has the incredible memory skills of a Malian child and names off everyone, or at least we think he does but since we can't remember everyone's Malian names, not having the memories or Malian children, we are not sure. His smile is, of course, just as big as always even when hauling his pants down around his ankles and sticking his butt out to show you his burns. Nothing phases this kid!

Sam's birthday

Sam is now a year older. She had her birthday while we were at in-service training just outside of Bamako. You might be tempted to think this would mean a less than memorable birthday (if you have ever gone through a Peace Corps in-service training this temptation is nigh on irresistible. Any Muppet fans that have seen the pod people of The Dark Crystal having their very essences sucked out of them through their blank staring eyes will be able to envision it clearly as well) but it had its moments. Those moments occurred during a trip to the “trashpile”, the bar down the road from the training center, Tubaniso. It is, essentially, the only option for the adult beverage seeker marooned there. Sure, a truly motivated person or group might head across the river for a few more options or jump a ride into Bamako proper. This type intrepid drinker might be discouraged by any number of factors. It could be dark, the transport could be notoriously unreliable, they could be broke or, worse, somewhere in West Africa and broke. However implausible it might sound, in the perfect storm that was Sam’s birthday, we were facing all these factors simultaneously.
We started off and quickly managed to flag down a car. There was room for four people. There were eight of us. Sam naturally got a spot being the birthday girl. That meant the hubby got one as well. The married couple was in the uncomfortable (for others) process of giving each other the silent treatment, for one reason or another. Needless to say, volunteers weren’t exactly falling over each other to get in on that scene. Jake and Susan drew the short straws, apparently, and started to climb in.
Here’s where it got fun. Sam slid across and gave Mark the thousand yard stare. He tried to escape the evil eye by looking for something, anything else to focus on. He saw a briefcase in the seat (two, actually, but he never got his hands on the second, as we will see) and grabbed it to move it out of Jake’s way. It was heavy. It required a bit of a heave. Smiling because he had found a way to help his friends and not have to look into the cold glare of his wife at the same time, Mark swung it out of the way. It connected squarely with Sam’s nose.
The smiling stopped. So did the silence. Sam was not pleased. She had some choice words for her beloved. They need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that pirates would have admired her colorful mastery of the English language at that moment. Truck drivers across the world blushed in unison. Mark flinched away, not from the myriad blows raining down on him but from the expected geyser of blood coming from her nose. It never came. Unbelievably, neither Sam nor Mark’s nose was broken. This fact did not make it any better for Jake, Susan or the two guys in the front who were nice enough to pick up a bunch of crazy toubabs. Thank god we dispelled any idea that these guys might have had about insane white people.
The doors to the car opened. Out came Susan and then Jake looking as if they had just escaped a pack of crazed zombies in the movie I Am Legend. Mark slinked out after with the look of a man who had just inadvertently hit his wife in the face on her birthday and, lastly, the battered birthday girl herself with the understandable displeasure of a woman who has been hit in the face by her husband on her birthday. The others arrived not long after, clearly debating whether they wanted more to find out how the ride ended or to flee. The celebration was going badly.
Then something unexpected happened. It came on the airwaves of Mail Orange. The fact that anything would get through on the completely unreliable airwaves of one the planet’s worst cellular carriers was amazing in itself, that it would be perfect timing to take Sam’s mind off her aching nose miraculous. Sam’s brother-in-law Brian called to wish her a happy birthday. He made her smile. Mark got on the phone with him and managed to loudly tell the story of how ridiculous their ride there had been which, in turn, made her laugh. He, of course, got cut off quickly but not before saving the evening. Mark owes him a beer.
A splendid time was had thereafter. Spirits were high as we left. The crew was ready for the walk, all fueled up on boxed wine and Castel beer. Mark, however, fancies himself really good at catching rides when he has no business getting one. This was certainly one of those times. When the driver of the massive mining dump truck saw the toubab on the side of the road pointing at the cab and then at the ground emphatically in front of him he must have been thrown for a loop. He likely stopped out of mere curiosity but by the time we had all climbed up the ladder and into the bed he was game. He probably figured that if a girl in a skirt, Kelly, was willing to straddle the side fifteen feet off the ground then she deserved a ride. Sam was thrilled. For the final movie allusion of this incredibly long entry, you should picture Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic yelling, “I’m the king of the world!” Yes, this is a bit of a stretch as you will have to substitute a movie star on the bow of the world’s most famous passenger liner on the open ocean with the wind in his hair for a Peace Corps volunteer in the back of a colossal dump truck driving down the trash lined streets of Mali. Hey, at least there was wind in her hair…

The Wonders never cease...

It appears (and I am sure a lot of dollars were exchanged on this one) that Kevin Coughlan, originally of South Portland Maine, has joined that twentieth century. Apparently he has whittled himself a computer! I just wanted to take a moment out of everyone's day to point this out. For those who do not know him, picture your original unibomber suspect. God only knows what the current century, being a mere nine years old mind you, holds for "mister leather tele-ski boot." An African-American president and now this, mon dieu! Will Dutch be buying pre-rolled cigarettes soon?!

Crusading Against Vice

Tomorrow marks the passing of an era as the Bush administration comes to an end. There has been much concern in certain circles over who might be able restore the victorian morals that once made our country great. Look no further. The mantle of Anthony Comstock himself has been taken up, to the elation of his former boss John Fournelle, by Mark. We are delivered.

Happy New Year!

Yesterday was an interesting day here in Kayes. It was the closing ceremonies for the Bienniel Cultural Fair held for the first time ever in the city of Kayes. Seeing that it is the Bienniel one would think that this fair would be held every 2 years. The last one was in 2005 in Segou. We can't figure out the math either. But I digress.

We stayed in Kayes a few extra days to witness the closing ceremonies specifically to hear the Malian President, A.T.T., speak and hopefully get our picture taken with him. The first part worked out, the latter did not. While the President was speaking it was difficult to hear. I am not sure if it was due to all the people around us talking to each other while he spoke or if it was the poor AV system which did not pack the speaker punch needed for the crowd to hear. I mean it was all in French and what little we could hear we could understand. Since there have been problems recently in the regions of Kidal and Timbuktu he mentioned those regions and got loud cheers from the people representing those regions at the cultural fair. It was interesting. Very, very interesting. It's limited security was also shocking. We were about 15 rows away from the President and walked right into the stadium without being checked for weapons. This would never happen in America! At least security did not believe A.T.T. was Mark's father. That's the line he tried on the security officer to get us a photo. Negative!

We hope Santa was good to you all this year. I know he brought us bacon, which for a country with no pigs was an amazing feat! We have enjoyed that bacon twice already - in BLTs and in Mac n Cheese!

We are heading back to our village to ring in the new year without one alcoholic beverage and a good nights sleep! It has been a long time since we woke up on New Year's Day refreshed. Maybe we should set some tough resolutions this year!

Happy New Year to you all. May your night be more exciting than ours will be.

Christmastime

So, we swear a delivery of charity goods made its way from Belfast, Maine to North Kayes region, Mali sometime in the last two years. The “Penobscot Bay YMCA” shirt in the little girl was shocking enough but now there has been a “Downeast Whitewater – Staff” polo shirt spotted on a woman there as well.
So, how’s this for an “only in Mali” experience? We had just finished our dinner. We could not move because Mark has just eaten his bodyweight in baashi and na, as he does every night, and had been rendered immobile. Normally we are in the middle of the concession but as it was we happened to be sitting in a different spot for a better angle on the Mexican soap opera dubbed in French to which Sam is addicted. It was a good thing, too, because as the ladies of the house sat down at their communal bowls there was a bit of a commotion down this tiny alley leading into the courtyard. We looked up to see what the commotion was just as two donkeys came crashing into the concession. It turned out that the loud braying was the lady of the couple trying mightily to spurn the amorous advances of the gentleman donkey, to a debatable degree of success. The end result was that these two fornicating donkeys proceeded to trash the concession completely. She ran amok right where we normally sat for dinner. He was undeterred in his pursuit. They flattened a poor little sheep tied to a post before barreling straight through where the women were eating. Peul women scattered in all directions! Baashi and sauce flew through the air! We sat frozen, watching in stunned amazement like Tom Hanks in the Money Pit when he placed a log in his fireplace only to watch the every brick of his chimney file past his face. We were probably nodding madly like him too. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of destruction although it was probably only an instant, the boys of the house found big enough sticks to begin driving out the interlopers. This sounds a hell of a lot easier in theory than it is in reality. Anyone with any experience with donkeys knows that they are rather stubborn animals. Sometimes you can’t move a donkey no matter how much of a beating is doled out, now picture it is getting lucky and see if you think it might move. Needless to say, our beau was not deterred by any amount of abuse. Alas, donkey love is mercifully brief and they managed to wrap it up and get out before any irreparable harm was done. Even the little sheep escaped serious injury. Well, if you ignore the fact that its throat was cut and it was eaten the next morning…
It is difficult to explain Mali especially when what we witness, we ourselves don’t understand. For example, one afternoon Sam spent the afternoon with the ladies, visiting a new bride in our concessions family. There were many hours of lounging, talking, eating, tea drinking and to top it off gum chewing. Side note – never just give American candy to the kids, the adults get offended as they want it as much as the kids do. In true Malian fashion, about an hour after the gum chewing commenced the gum was then found scattered all over the area we were sitting, on people’s shoes, on the mats on which we sat and even in the mouths of the children that had picked it up off the ground to see if there was any flavor left. The disposal of gum is treated like any other piece of trash here in Mali, when you are finished discard it wherever you are. I was amazed that none of the ladies were fazed or thought anything about the gum disposal methods as they watched the kids chew and cleaned it from their mats and shoes. The stuff that stuck to their hands they simply wiped on the same hanger post where someone had just wiped their kid’s snot from their hands.
We had a Merry Christmas with a day at a pool, great food and friends (our friends made homemade mozzarella cheese), wine and beer and calls from our families. We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Santa was good to you. Happy New Year!