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!

Thanksgiving

Well, we’ve hit a milestone of sorts, our first major holiday in Mali. The Malians don’t seem to put too much importance on Thanksgiving, oddly enough. We ended up having a huge dinner with a bunch of other volunteers. It was big and noisy and people ate until they were about to burst, so that was as it should be. The turkey was chicken but the rest of the meal was the same as at home with mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. Try to picture a bunch of Americans who are typically cut off from others with to whom they can relate to or even communicate. Now picture that those same people often have the same meals everyday, meals they do not enjoy and sometimes cannot even identify (Jake finally figured out yesterday that the mysteriously translated “dog size, lion-like leopard monkey-man that steals peanuts” which was caught in the fields and which he had been fed was, in fact, a jackal). It’s hard to put into words how truly thankful one can be to have familiar faces and a familiar meal on Thanksgiving but you get the idea.

Things continue to be interesting in our village. The amazing number of languages spoken by the inhabitants continues to hinder our ability to pick up anything but we try to keep our patience. When we return we should be able to speak a rather odd mishmash of Bambara, Sonnike, Peul, French, Moorish, Arabic and other languages that will only be decipherable by us. A secret language indeed.

We try to take up our time with many small tasks. One of those is list building. Sam’s lists often have a similar theme. They may be something like, “Reasons why Disney World is the greatest place on earth,” or “Rides at Disney I’d like to be on right now.” Sometimes she’ll allow us to branch out and fantasize with a list like “Places to see before death but after Disney.” One can actually pass the time quite effectively debating what might be a good country addition to Epcot Center or laughing about the blatant ethno-centricism of a ride like It’s a Small World (I think they are redesigning this one because it is possibly the least politically correct display ever. Picture a message of world peace and unity…as long as everyone is white!).

The lists go on and on. “Why you should always wash your hands with soap.” “Things that can puncture your bike tire.” “Why sit down toilets are good.” “Why sit down toilets are bad.” “Less effective colonial powers than France (very short one).” “Foods I’d like to eat right now.” We need a list of the lists.

One of the favorite lists is the “Best t-shirts seen in Mali” list. This one requires a bit of background explanation. Malians are former subjects of France. They referred to the white Frenchmen as “toubabs.” They see no difference between euros, so all white people are “toubabs.” Due to the amazing number of charities around the world that collect old clothes to be sent to the developing world, the area of West Africa is flush with old t-shirts. People here are pretty sensible and don’t throw out their clothes until they simply fall apart. In their perfectly logical reasoning the obvious explanation for all this toubab clothing is that the former owners have died. Thus, this clothing is known as “Dead Toubab” clothing.

Reading “dead toubab” t-shirts here is a great way to spend time. The people wearing the shirts seem to have never considered that the writing might carry some message, which makes it even funnier. Seeing a colossal guy carrying a fifty pound sack of rice on each shoulder down the road while sporting a pink tee shirt with the word “SLUT” spelled out in glittery sequins will put a smile on your face any day of the week. The toothless lady who looks so old that she was here to greet the first European explorers wearing the “I’m too sexy for this shirt” is good for another chuckle. I particularly enjoyed the cryptic shirt that said “12/31/99” which I could not figure out until I read the back: “The Last T-Shirt.” “The Barking Spider” shirt had such a pleasing cartoon spider (complete with cartoon fart) that it was reproduced by our fellow volunteer Jared and now is on display on the fridge of the stage house. The little girl in our village wearing the “Penobscot Bay YMCA” one hit a little close to home. Of course, the best one was spotted in the market on the banks of the Senegal River. It message was simple: “Boston College.” We are also noting a number of restaurants and bars across the States that we want to visit. It will be fun to go in and say “We’ve been meaning to try this place. We saw it on a t-shirt out on the edge of the Sahara.”

It’s getting to be cool season here. In our village that means it still hits 100 degrees. During the evenings, however, it can get down to an almost comfortable sleeping level…almost. At least it doesn’t rain anymore. We are expecting a front to blow through around May. Picture, if you will, Sam standing with a hand shading her squinting eyes. She sighs as she takes in the imposing visage of an approaching sandstorm. It’s a wall of sand that gobbles up the landscape as it approaches. Almost to herself she says quietly, “ski season starts next week.”

Oh yeah, my mom will be happy to know that the famous chanteuse Quebecoise, Celine Dion, has quite a following in French West Africa. Other famous, well-loved western singers: Michael Jackson and Tracy Chapman. One can never hear Thriller too many times.

Kita-ween 2008

Our first Malian trip was a success! During our first 3 months at site we are allowed only to travel within our region, so we decided to take a trip to Kita, together with six other friends. The easiest, most direct route would be by train. We constantly heard all the stories of theft and derailment but we decided it was a must do one time while in Mali. Why not cross it off the list early? How bad could it really be? We've traveled pleanty in the 3rd world. So we bought tickets and made our way to the train station where we found our seats, or better yet remnants of our seats. They were literally the coil springs. Yes, we sat on coil springs for about 10 hours. It was a bonus that the cushion and leather was still there for us to recline against.

At 10 hours the train stopped for a longer period of time than normal. We thought the employees were just eating and praying so we were worry free. And then we departed and got about 200 ft where we stopped, the tracks were moved and we pulled back into the station on a different set of tracks. It was about then that we prepared ourselves to sleep on the train for a night. We were in a small train town with no roads and no motos.

But 2 hours later a sotorama - a hollowed out van with benches, the main mode of transport for short distances in Mali - arrived out of nowhere. We ran over and demanded to know where they were going. Kita rang from the man's lips so we jumped in expecting his 1 hour quote to take 3 hours on a horribly bumpy dirt road. But after 1 hour and 15 minutes on the smoothest dirt road we've ever been on we arrived safely in Kita.

Kita was fun and low key. We did a lot of sitting around, talking and catching up. We did climb a hill outside on the edge of town one day, which was fun too. And we dressed up - see previous posting. The day before we were to return home we went to the rail station to buy our tickets. We were informed that the train was still not running as the track that was broken, having prevented us from getting all the way to Kita, still had not been fixed - Dooni, Dooni - Slow, Slow.

So the only way home was a by bus - and what a journey that was. 25 hours door to door to go 550 miles. Our bus was quite scary and our seats were worse than the train. While all the cusions were in tact, they were not properly bolted to the floor and they were reclining on the seat behind them. That is until they sold that seat to a Malian and then our seats were reclined onto a Malian's lap. He would just lift us off him, change positions as needed and gently lay us back upon his lap. He spent 9 hours like that! Thank goodness he only had to go half way to our location.

At about 11pm the bus hit some potholes going really fast. We lost street cred when one of our friends said to the bus driver Dooni, Dooni - slow, slow. It took us until 6am to get our credibility back, but we mananged. Maybe it was that us tubobs stopped the bus after more potholes at high speeds and it sounded and smelled like the bus broke in 2. Needless to say we spent a little time on the side of the road while the bus was getting fixed that night. After it was "fixed" we started out again - but never got over about 15 miles per an hour. At 6am we coasted into town going about 5 miles per an hour. Just another 3rd world travel story to add to the books!

We are off to site!

We've joined the Malian National Soccer Team!

Wish us luck in our upcoming campaign to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.