Break-ins, kindness and buying shirts off of people's backs

My month of deep inner searching has ended.

This month I:
--Spent three weeks sick
--Found out someone's been repeatedly breaking into my house
--Rode the emotional roller coaster of a lifetime
--Started meditating again
--Checked off my goal of "Ride something taller than a horse" when I had to ride on top of a bashi (bus) for 3-4 hours (totally fun too)
--Wrote a poem and story
--"Deep inner searchED" - past tense. Meaning, I think I pushed through the Malian blues and things are going great

As you can tell, it's been an interesting month. Everything from daily Mr.D to breaking my relationship with my  host sister to finding a used condom in my trash can to trying to play with some kids who got beaten up by their dad because he thought they were being bad to selling fish, little bags of macaroni and sugary juice sachets in the market to making mud-dyed fabric.

I would characterize this last month as the Top Two hardest thing I've ever done. And I've done some hard work in my life and been through a lot. This month has been insane, but all in all, I am so grateful for it. Because, as my dad says, it made me a better person, a stronger person and a better volunteer.

The only real change we can make in the world is to improve ourselves.

Anyway, so let me tell you the story of the constant break-ins.

The past few weeks, when I would come home from spending time in my community, I would find my stuff not-that-noticeably in disarray. After the trip to Bamako for my friend's birthday, I came back to find my suitcase wide open, with my personal items strewn about. Someone had clearly been shuffling through my giant suitcase.

I thought, "No, there's no way. I have to be imagining this."

Then, I would come home to find the lid on my American food open. And food missing. Little by little, my American food was disappearing.

I thought, "No, I guess I just ate it all. That sucks."

And I would come home to find all my clothes sifted around. And once my host sister remarked that I "had a lot of clothes," and I remember thinking, "How the hell would she know that? That's weird."

And then there's the story of my host sister tip-toeing into my house when I was curled up in a ball in unmentionable pain, with no pants on.

And that time, the first thing I thought was, "Am I seeing things? Do I have a ghost in my house? What the hell is going on??!" But it wasn't. The person in my house was a woman wearing a red skirt. And her footprint was ingrained in the termite dust on my floor.

Another time I came home to find my jewelry box open, with my jewelry hanging out. I never get into that thing, but still, I brushed it off.

Finally, when I came home after being sick in Bamako, my make-up in my bathroom was on my sink. It's usually in my basket next to my sink. In addition, eye shadow was wiped all over my towel. My brand-new soap was opened.

I waited until the next day, when I immediately talked to my regional coordinator (who is awesome).

After that, I knew for a fact that someone had been going into my house. There's no way in hell I did any of that, and after I realized for sure someone had been breaking in, it all started making sense. All the little incidents started adding up.

When I got off the phone with him, I opened my eye shadow case to find it all crumbled and broken and scratched out. That's the eye shadow that was wiped all over my towel.

I looked at my American food. Gum and Chips Ahoy were gone. A bunch of chocolate was gone. Reeses were gone. In fact, 90% of my American food was missing.

I walked my regional coordinator through my house, showing him all the stuff moved and missing and wiped everywhere. He totally believed me and was sure someone had been breaking into my house.

The weird thing we couldn't figure out was...HOW were they getting in? There was no sign of forced entry. My windows have bars and screens on them. The only way...was if someone had a KEY. That's just creepy.

Well, when I was waiting for the carpenter dude to change my locks, I decided to burn my trash.

Malians will usually go through your trash and take things from it. After feeling as violated as I did, I didn't want someone peeking through my trash.

Well, there was a little surprise in my trash.

Right at the bottom, buried purposefully at the bottom, was a Peace Corps Med Kit condom wrapper and used condom.

Wasn't mine.

I looked into my Med Kit, and sure enough, someone had sloppily ravaged through my Med Kit, ripped off the condom and left them all at the top of my Med Kit.

I immediately filed a report with Safety and Security and staged an intervention talk with my regional coordinator and my host family.

If my host family can't keep me safe, then why the fuck am I living there? That's their number one priority as a host family...and with them being gone all day and with the prime suspect being my 17-year-old host sister...why am I paying them to live in a house that's not safe and secure?

The weight of the situation took some time to settle in. Someone was breaking into my house...with a KEY. That's scary. Someone could have been sneaking into my house at any time, when I was sleeping, showering, anytime.

And...the worst part was...was someone having SEX in my house??? On MY bed??

I got my locks changed immediately. The next day we staged an intervention. It was so intense. The talk took about two hours and ended with me and my host sister crying.

I still don't know if it was her, but everything points in her direction. I asked every PCV who had been in my house about the situation, about the condom...and yes, there's still a chance that somehow the condom was from a PCV, but the way everything was done so sloppily, it doesn't seem feasible that a PCV I know so well would discard a used condom in my trash and not tell me. Plus, if an American were going through my stuff, I don't think they'd go through things so obviously.

Shame is one of the biggest deterrents in Malian culture. The worst possible thing a person can do is shame his/her family. Seriously, this is worth exile. Shame is hardcore here.

With that said, I don't think I will ever know who did it. If it was my host sister, she will NEVER, EVER, EVER admit it. Because it will SHAME her family like no other.

So, after this debacle, I decided I wanted to get away for a couple of days. I needed some space after feeling like someone violated my space so much.

I locked every door in my house - my kitchen door, my bathroom, my bedroom, double locked my front door...and embarked for the Niger River village-PCV getaway spot of Manatali.

I hope I can do the road to Manatali some justice. The trip to Manatali, after you've waited up for the bus to show up up to five hours late, is equivalent to driving a broken-down, smoking and bouncy bus down a ravaged riverbed.

The bus trip to Mantali from Kita can take anywhere up to four and a half to 12 hours. But, that's just the usual Malian way.

A few PCVs and I decided to go. The bus was full of enormous rice sacks covering the floor. There were wooden benches nailed to the walls of the bus for people to sit. People were squashed into the bus, like usual, with people occupying the rice sacks, the top of the bus and each inch on the bench.

On top of the bus, up to four or five feet high, was stacked with bikes, bags and mattresses and other furniture. There is no way in hell, unless you took some Ambien, to fall asleep on this extremely bouncy, jiggly, side-of-the-road maneuvering bus ride.

With no space left on the bus, my friend and I decided to squish ourselves onto the piles on the bus. For the next four or five hours.

It was a blast! I got snapped in the face by several trees and twigs, waved and greeted Malian passers-by, and talked music with a fellow PCV. When I got off the bus I felt like I had been lifting weights and I had cuts and scratches all over my body. My tip of my nose was sun burnt and there was a perfect line where my sunglasses had been. But it was worth every minute.

CHECK: Rode something taller than a horse.

CHECK: Saw monkeys.

Manatali is like a little beautiful river oasis in the dust-covered, treeless furnace that is Mali. It's the most aesthetically pleasing place I've been in Mali, and the river is right next to the stage huts.

People see hippos in the water and monkeys swinging in the trees. I too, saw Curious George when I was there this time. The little guy was playing with a plant under a hangar. He kept popping his head over the chair and staring at us. Then he would sink back down and pop back up. His little friend, a small baby monkey came to join him in basking and running in the sun. Curious George.

Turned out, leaving site for a few days after my break-in debacle was the best idea I've had.

When I came back, I felt ready to come back and excited to see everyone in my community. I felt like a lot of the tension I was holding after the break-in/Malian blues was released.

And now, things have been going great.

Each day, I wake up and meditate, get out and about somewhat early, walk to my service, rather than ride my bike, greet every person on the way, introduce myself and just wander around my village, meeting people and building relationships.

That's what I used to really enjoy about integration #1. I loved just wandering around, talking to people. Building relationships, joking around and witnessing Malian events I would never get the chance to see otherwise.

A couple days ago, I was chatting with the people at my shea service. Recently, I had wandered out to find some food. Around noon, it's hot as the insides of a bonfire, so all the people take their buckets and fly-infested goods and go home for the "heat of the day." You can't find anything to eat at lunch time!

A few minutes after I told Baba this, Younousa, the little guy I teach "What's up, homie?" to, came back with about three small pieces of goat meat on a ripped-off piece of used cement bag paper.

This meat probably cost the equivalent of 30-50 cents American, but the thought felt like a million bucks. It was my ultimate feared goat meat...a piece of the shag-carpet-like stomach and another piece or two with a bunch of fat and innards. I ate it anyway. It was actually delicious.

And each day, I watch Baba study in his steel and wooden wheelchair.

He's studying kindergarten-level Bambara, learning how to read, write and do simple math.

Baba is at least in his 40s. And he's learning how to read, write and do math. The thought crushes my heart in a good way. He is so determined to learn it, he gladly shows off his work, writing and re-writing Ss and Rs and Js and doing "1+3=4" equations. He smiles from ear-to-ear and tells me all about his literacy classes, even inviting me to come with him some time.

I also like to walk through the market and greet people. I just go wherever the mood and flow takes me. I make sure to make friends with the ladies who sell pate and vegetables, as those are my favorite. As I walk through the market, random people will stop me by shouting my Malian name, first and last name, and ask me how I am, how my family is, if there are any problems and then finish the greeting by telling God to give me peace for my day.

I love the conversations with random entrepreneurs on my walk to work each day. I've had a carpenter ask me about the kind of work I do, and when I tell him that I teach people how to do business, he asked me to help him.

I have people exclaim how much they want to learn English and ask me if I can help them.

I have little kids screaming "TOUBABU!!!!!!! TOUBABU!!!" and then waving like a bat-out-of-hell at me, seriously grinning and flailing their little hands at me. I love these kids. I always bend down on my knee, get to their level, and ask them how they are and what their name is. The usually just say "Owo" (Yes) because they are too little to know the language yet, but they are starting to even learn my name. And even know that I'm not a Toubab, but an American.

The dudes who fix things, drink tea and chat on my street fully recognize the fact that I am indeed, an American muso, not a Toubab.

The little girls (ages ~6 months to 8-years-old) who sell sugary, frozen juice drinks in tiny plastic bags from a dirty cooler on the side of the street all know my name. They always go "I ni ce Aramata!" when I pass by on my way to the stage house.

The lady who sells pork meatballs (seriously pork is a rare thing here, as we are in a 95% Muslim country) on the side of the street knows me too. And she's always greeting me enthusiastically, with a big smile, a blessing and another chance to convince me to tell all my American friends to buy the pork meatballs from her.

Today, I got the pleasure of spending the first quality time with my 80-year-old host mom.

She's been asking me day after day to come visit her spot in the market where she sells random food items.

I wander all around the market every day, but I never see her. Finally, we made plans to go together and for me to sit with her as she sells chopped up fish, mini macaroni sacks, sugary juice sachets, and tiny spaghetti sacks, deep in the market.

The reason she is never home is because she and her daughter have to work in the market all day, every day to make ends meet. Making ends meet is probably an understatement, because I would be very surprised if she ever makes a profit. And if she does, it can't be more than the equivalent to $1 a day.

But every day, she wakes up with the sun at 5 AM to pray. Then her "work starts" as she tells me. She gets stuff ready for extravaganza in the market and "doesn't clean the house." Haha. She's really old so she delegates that task to my teenage host sister.

I find my host mom sometimes filling small bags with juice. She sells a kind of frozen sweet tea and mixes Foster Clark juice packets with water and freezes them to sell them from her mini cooler.

She also chops up fish and sells little piles of cooked fish. And she buys big bags of macaroni and spaghetti and portions them into seriously tiny bags. Pasta is expensive to the average Malian, so smaller portions makes sense and is more affordable in the short-term.

Today, we headed out to the market at 8 AM, carefully dodging the massive mud pits carved into the road after the past few days' downpours. As we walked, I saw her boobs swaying in and out of her over-sized Malian musokoroba (old woman) outfit. This is not uncommon. And it's not embarrassing at all. Women always walk around with no shirt or bra on. And my host mom does it all the time.

She stops to greet most of the people on the road, adding another 10 minutes of straight greeting to our walk. She happily asks them if they slept in peace, how their family is and how they are.

At one point, she greets her cekoroba friend, who grabs my hand and seriously gives me at least 10-20 blessings through his rotten, gapped and almost-toothless grin. He was nice.

When we get to the sugu (market), we weave in and out through alleys within the sugu. Finally, we find her spot, a random, well tucked-in table among two other women entrepreneurs.

She sits next to a woman selling small piles of peppers. The other woman is selling Maggi, the Malian equivalent to buillon cubes, crushed powders, salt, sugar bags. They kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. After wandering for more than an hour in the sugu and village, I decide to join them for a sit and chat.

My host mom proudly yells to anyone and everyone approaching who I am. It was cute. She tucks the money she makes, small coins, under the cement sack she uses to cover the table.

As she hands people their cut up fish, she wraps it in an old typed report the previous volunteer wrote about Kita, with English notes scribbled on it. Probably some paper she found in his trash.

When I decide to leave, she runs after me, barely missing the globs of mud in the crevices of the "road" - to introduce me to a random  young man selling shiny, waxy bazan fabric. I have no clue why she really wanted me to meet this dude, but he was nice.

At that point, I was pursuing a Malian dude with a blue shirt with a huge American flag on it that sparked with the amazing word - "AMERICA" on it. I asked him if I could buy the shirt off his back. (This is not totally uncommon for Malians to let you do this.)

I promised him to buy him another shirt and pay him for it. He actually ended up being a complete trampoline douche about it and led me to believe he was going to let me buy the shirt off his back. He didn't.

I didn't give up on my "America" shirt.

As I was browsing the dead Toubab clothes piles, at one of my favorite clothes shack, I saw a shirt with an American flag on it.

I asked how much. They said "keme duru" which, if you're reading and you know how much that is for a used American T-shirt, you know that's freaking OUTRAGEOUS. "Keme duru" is 2,500 CFAs, or about $5. No Malian in their right mind would EVER pay that much for one of these shirts. That's more than 2,000 way toooo much. He was just giving me that price because I'm white.

I throw the shirt down and stalk off. Saying, in English, how there's no way in freaking hell I was going to pay that. I usually don't buy from people who give me such outrageous prices like that, it's a principle thing.

Then, a guy who bought me a pair of tights when I had a similar fit, just gave me the shirt. So, all in all, my American shirt pursuit worked out.

As I browsed more piles, I found an even better "America" shirt - big, American flag - that says "AMERICA" on the top and "THE Place" under the flag.

How perfect.

When people see your butt, chasing buses, and people who think you're a hooker

Today, I had to chase down my bus. Like, run as fast as I could, with my arms flailing, me screaming, Malians laughing and me possibly spitting out a few cuss words.

I may have said, "The bus LEFT??? What the FUCK!!" And then started sprinting.

After about 150 yards, I caught my bus. And banged frantically on the moving doors.

This is good.

I actually felt great after catching my bus, climbing aboard and yelling, "Mobili BORA!!" - which means "The bus LEFT!"...and all my little Malian travel buddies laughed.

I was thinking, "What the heck, Malians??! I thought we were friends and you would look out for the only white person on the bus! It's not like I'm hard to miss here!"

I mean, they could tell I was totally cool with the chicken in a box behind me, the rotting smell of shea nuts, the bouncy, bustling bus swaying to avoid hitting a donkey in the road and, of course, I was cool with the fact that I was sitting next to my arch nemesis, a Keita.

I was more sad that my seat buddy, the Coulibaly's arch rival, a Keita muso (woman whose last name is Keita), didn't help me out. We sat and chatted for a while and didn't even diss each other as much as Keitas and Coulibalys usually do.

Keitas and Coulibalys are the biggest "enemies" of the Malian joking cousin relationship. I always poke at a Keita stomach and taunt them with, "Ohhhh, your stomach is so full and fat! Why? Because you are a Keita and you eat so many beans!" Ha. Malians always laugh so hard when I do this.

I bought a huge piece of American flag fabric yesterday for the equivalent of $3.50. I chatted with the random guy selling American flag fabric, hammers, onions, other tools, with a bunch of kids who were about 10 years younger than he is, for a good 15 minutes. He was cool.

He kept telling me my Bambara was good. We joked about him eating beans (womp womp), how Malians are nice, what America is like, the usual. I am going to make a ridiculous outfit with this fabric. Malians love ridiculous fabric, clothes and accessories, so I  love them too.

I also had the pleasure of doing a stool sample today. After discussing my poop with the doctor for a good 15 minutes, she's guessing I might have an intestinal parasite. But, malaria is ruled out. So, I won't be bed-ridden with a disease that actually kills thousands of people. So, that, too, is good.

The Malian blues are going away...extremely slowly...but they're going away. Dooni dooni.

I chilled with my shea co-op yesterday for a few short hours before concluding that I needed to leave to chill at home and get better. It's hard to get out and about, talk non-stop in a foreign language, avoid the nyegen run-off in the street and withstand the oppressive heat when you're feeling like the nyegen run-off on the street.

But at this point, my health is my most important asset. So, here I am in Bamako, hanging out in the A/C, beautiful tile floors and clean sheets for the next day.

A guy asked me if I was a hooker today.

He drove right up to me, in his shiny, used Mercedes (the most common car here) and asked me something about being his companion. I mean...I didn't look like a prostitute! I wasn't wearing a pagne on the wrong side of my hip, I wasn't drinking, I wasn't smoking, I wasn't whistling...why was I suddenly a hooker to this dude? Either way, I just kept saying "AYI!! AYI!! AYI!!" - which means "NO!" and he finally got the point I wasn't going to be anyone's companion.

Got the new Lady Gaga Rolling Stone today, from my wonderful and spunky friend, Annie. I just want to give her a shout out and say how big I smiled when I received it today. Being so far away, it's nice to feel like people back home still love me. Thank you Annie, I love you too! I wish I could have made it for your bachelorette party in Vegas this weekend...

And thank you VERY much to Sandra, Ryan and Dascia, Krystal, mom, Mark and Danielle for your letters and boxes. It means a lot more than I could ever write...so thank you again and again. I <3 you all too.

I fought the ants again last night. I have come to the decision that they're living in, under and around my sink, for some reason. Again...there were hundreds, maybe thousands of them...swarming my sink. I'm kinda like "Ehh" at this point. I just squirted them with a few sprays of lavender spray and left them to die a slow, painful death. I guess I need to buy some RAMBO. The ultimate bug-killing, non-federally-regulated poison for little monsters like my ants, the mutant cockroaches and I think, even rats.

I thought I saw a ghost the other day.

Turns out, it was most likely my host sister breaking into my house. Fortunately for her, I was lying on my mattress without pants on when she walked in. Oh, I was also lying on my stomach. Good for her - she came sneaking in, expecting to find some far-off American treasures...and she found my ass!

Well, at first I screamed. I wasn't expecting a Malian muso to tip-toe into my house when I was half-naked, though, when I had my cockroach attack, it has happened previously. All I saw was a Malian muso with a red pagne (Malian skirt, tied to the left side, so you're not considered a hooker, like me).

And...I had more evidence. Her footprint was forever saved in my massive pile of chair particle dust from my termite infestation in my stick chair.

Now that she had seen my bare ass, I wanted to ask her why she was snooping around in my house.

She denied everything! And she was wearing a red pagne...who else could it be??
Was I seeing things?? Was it a ghost??

I've decided it was her. Why she wanted in my house...I don't know. But she got a good view.

Either way, in the past few days, I have regained my sense of humor. This is KEY. I can't imagine surviving two years in a place like Mali without a sense of humor. That is what I would describe as "hell" - so, I am happy to say, the sense of humor is back!

Screaming and sprinting after a fat Malian bus, pooping in a tiny plastic bottle, drowning ants in perfume poison, my Malian sister stealing glances of my butt and learning about how to get picked up like a hooker here in Mali...all experiences I am very happy to have here in the world's armpit. And I'm even laughing about them again. Life is getting better!!

The Malian Blues: Big Round #1

I am really depressed. It's more frustrating because I can't pinpoint exactly why. 


I see other volunteers playing games, being happy and smiling and I'm sad that I don't feel that way. I feel really sad inside. I want it to go away!! 


I can't really describe this depression. It's like a sorrowful slump...I don't want to go out and talk to Malians. I guess I just want to sit here and do nothing. I really want it to go away. I think I have only ever felt this sad maybe a handful of times. 


When I was leaving for Mali, my best friend, Al, who's in Peace Corps Ukraine now, told me that PC is the hardest thing she's ever done in her life. 


I thought, yeah, it will probably one of the hardest things I've ever done...but there is one thing above the PC that takes the cake for being the hardest. 


But now, the Malian blues are turning out to be the hardest thing. It's slowly creeping up there as the lowest point ever. Just go away!


The thought of tackling my second integration again makes me want to curl up in a ball and sleep in a dark corner until it all goes away. What I'm trying to say is, I am uncharacteristically dreading the shit out of not-really-that-hard-work. 


But the thing is, I don't want to be in America. I don't even really know if I like America anymore. I feel bitter toward America after an experience like Mali. I feel like the laziness, gluttony and utter disregard for people in other parts of the world is just disgusting. Jeez, right!?? Mali is making me bitter! 


I'm being hard on myself because I'm not motivated, because I'm annoyed with life here, because I feel lonely but am surrounded by people, because I don't know how to cope, because I thought I had the answers to find out they're all wrong, because I am so sad and I don't want to leave the house. I am really hard on myself about not tackling integration #2 with the same gusto as integration #1. I am finding it impossible to be patient with myself. 


This is one of those cases where your worst enemy is yourself. And I know it, so that's half of the battle. I'm at least aware of it. 


Why can't I be accepting of the fact that this will change? That this is totes temporary? That this is strengthening me in ways I don't know? Why can't I just get up and do something?? 


Also, my sister says when stuff like this happens, to just feel it. Human emotion like this is really beautiful. And I have to go through my own process. Why not see the beauty in that process and roll with it? Pain and suffering are beautiful...because we grow tremendously from them. If we don't let it wreck us. 


My friend, Jessica Luo, an utter and complete badass, asked me today if I was okay. She said she thinks I am comparing myself too much with what I was able to do at my old site. And this site is just too different to do that. And before, I didn't have any frame of reference as to what "integration" would be like. Now that I do, I am comparing myself unfairly. 


I told her I just have high expectations for myself...but really...I'm being super cruel to myself. Damnit! I just realized that a Tarot reading I got right before I came to Mali warned me of cruelty...to myself. I guess that kind of puts it into perspective for me. I'm making myself my worst enemy. 


Man, Mali is really messing with my head. 


This place is way more than the emotional roller coaster everyone described it as. There are so many ups and downs. Not only within long periods of time, but within one day, or even, especially lately, within an hour or several minutes. 


The other thing I'm learning here is that, one day you can have a huge problem and the next day the complete solution to your problem appears out of thin air, and alas, things are drastically different. Day to day. Hour to hour this happens. 


I need to stop being so hard on myself, enjoy what's happening to me...I'm growing...and realize the beauty and opportunity right in front of my eyes. I'll never be in this place again...every minute of it is an adventure. Every minute of it should be cherished. 


I'm actually starting to feel a little better. But, seriously, that could change drastically in the next minute. 


Writing is therapeutic for me. That's how I get perspective on things and get it off my chest. It's something that's going to become a lot more than a hobby for me after the PC. I really want to travel to the most unknown, obscure places and write about them. Tell those stories. Tell the stories of people who no one cares about, no one knows about, shed some light on them and why they deserve it. But, we'll see what happens. 


Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Lady Gaga, Rhianna, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin...have all been great sources of support here in Mali. A pen and a paper too. My bike also. Dancing used to...but it gotten kind of old after dancing that much for two months straight. But a nice, healthy way to relieve stress. 


Listened to some Bob Marley today that I could relate to Mali: "Them Belly Full (But We're Hungry)"


Forget your troubles and dance!
Forget your sorrows and dance!
Forget your sickness and dance!
Forget your weakness and dance!

Cost of livin' gets so high,
Rich and poor they start to cry:
Now the weak must get strong;
They say, "Oh, what a tribulation!"
Them belly full, but we hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
A rain is fall, but the dirt it tough;
A pot is cook, but the food no 'nough.

We're gonna chuck to Jah music - we're chuckin';
We're chuckin' to Jah music - we're chuckin'.

Man, I love Bob Marley. I like these lyrics because that really is the kind of solution we have available here in Mali. It's not like in America, where you can just get up and go do about anything you want to help you cope with something. Here, resources are extremely limited. People dance and play "drums" with old trash bins and sticks. They do what they can.

If Malians can, I can too. "Forget your troubles and dance." I probably won't dance, because I'm sick of Malian dancing, but I understand the concept. It's quite beautiful.

"Deep inner search"

I was talking to my dad today, telling him I felt depressed.

He asked me, "Are you sure it's really depression, or just a deep inner search?"

I like that. That's clever and it looks on the bright side of life...something I've been struggling to do lately. I'm usually a really happy-go-lucky, optimistic, look-on-the-brightside kind of woman. But lately...lately...that's been TOUGH.

So, I guess this is my quest on my deep inner search.

On my deep inner search, I find it hard, now that IST is over and I'm back in Malian reality, to find motivation on a minute-to-minute basis. It's even hard to find motivation to write this blog post.

I am spending fewer hours with Malians than my last integration. I feel burnt out. I have no energy. Malians irritate me more and more. I miss my last village. I am an asshole more and more. I just don't give a shit as much as I used to. It's more about my time and me than it was before.

Before my deep inner search, when Malians would ask me to do something, I would usually try my hardest to accommodate them. I would be all smiles and happy, waving and greeting at absolutely everyone I passed. I'd stop and talk to the dugutigi, the mayor, my favorite butiki owner. I felt like I was being the perfect volunteer.

This was me, attempting to affect my attitude positively by thinking positive thoughts and "Faking it til I make it," as Ari Ben, my old Zone Manager at The Kansan, used to tell me when I was nervous about being a manager for the first time. It was some of the best advice that worked...so I thought, hey, it will work in Mali too.

But, that burns you out. I put all my energy and gusto into my first integration, now here I am, idly sitting by on my second try...I spent all day with Malians, chatting them up, drinking tea, walking around my village, greeting, wearing Malian clothes, chilling with the butiki owners, greeting every single butiki owner in my village, going to the mayor's office to chat, ALL the schools, greeting all the classes, the CSCOM, riding my bike around my village, cooking with Malians, making TO and kous kous, doing educational work with the radio, teaching English to my neighbor kids, going to any and all town meetings, events, parties, celebrations...

Now, the thought of tackling integration again, especially like the first time, reminds me of the image of a balloon deflating. I feel like my air, my steam, what made me work...has deflated.

I am also incredibly bored. In my last village, I was never really bored. Here, I am extremely bored. I don't even have a book I'm interested in reading.

The thought of two years here scares the hell out of me.

I tried to get a Malian cab driver arrested in Bamako. He was morbidly obese, his seat was smashing my knees in, he stopped twice for greasy food, no one wanted to greet him, he was an asshole, a slob, he picked up a hooker, hit someone with his car, stopped to pee in the middle of the road, stole our money and yelled at us not to talk to him. That guy was a jerk. His name is Musa Keita, if you're ever in Bamako and need a cab ride, DON'T, I repeat, DON'T take his cab. He should be sweating in a jail cell now. I think I handled the situation calmly and coolly, but I have to admit, the crazy dude really pissed me off. (I am sorry that I have such a potty mouth, my dad's been yelling at me about this since I was 5. Some things don't change.)

The bugs are also making me crazy.

As you know, they've taken over my new house. A rat ate half of my soap. It was all the way on my sink!

The other thing is, diarrhea, or "Mr. D" as Dr. Dawn likes to call it, is a regular topic of conversation here in the world's armpit. I have more convos about diarrhea than almost anything else. I can tell you who has had it, what kind of disease, infection or amoeba caused it, and what the Mr. D was like - explosive, watery, chunky - that's just a part of life here in Mali.

I've been sick here in Mali for almost three weeks now. And being sick, while sitting on a tiny toilet (seriously, my toilet is tiny), curled up in pain, sweating bullets and just trying to get through the moment is hard enough without an army of ants crawling on your butt, feet, legs, arms...butt. This is becoming more and more common at my house.

Thanks for the good times, Mali.

Termites are chewing through my chair. I can't see them, all I can see are constant new piles of chair particles. Now it is starting to have holes in it and it's uneven, so it teeters, because the termites chomped so much of it.

I also had that hammer head-looking, cross between a scorpion and tarantula spider sitting in my bathroom when I really had to pee. Right next to my toilet. I dropped my Peace Corps med kit on it and smashed it to death. Then I saved its dead body for a picture I haven't taken yet.

Day before yesterday, I went to wash my hands and ants came swarming out of my plug. Hundreds of them. Then ran all over my sink, faucet, my feet, arms, hands, walls, Ipod, everything. Everywhere. I just sprayed them with perfume and drowned them with splashes of water. Some are still floating in the sink water.

I am also sick again. I have some cold or fever or something. My throat is enormous, runny nose, phlegm, all that crap. It really sucks being sick in Mali. You have no comforts from home to alleviate the pain or discomfort. You just kind of have to stick it out and hope something else won't make you sicker.

I've lost enough weight for a small baby. At least three to five pants sizes. Normally, this would be great news, but I've seen too many people looking starved and losing weight for unhealthy reasons - because they are starving, not eating the right food, biking 20 kilometers just to get a main road in the hottest sun in the world - dropping weight unhealthily. I guess it's a good thing I have a pate addiction.

I also have horrible guilt. The fact that I feel really unmotivated makes me feel so guilty because the people here in Kita are so amazing. They're so hospitable, they just want me to be comfortable and happy, they love greeting me and chatting with me and even the little kids aren't scared of me and we high five all the time. I feel horrible that I am not loving things at the moment.

And I haven't done my VRF yet. I'm sorry Jolie, though I'm pretty sure you're not reading this. It's the Volunteer Report File that measures what we do here in Mali, basically for congressional funding purposes.

And I can't cry anymore. Sometimes I just want to cry. Really hard. And get it out of my system and move on. But lately, no tears. Nothing. Can't cry. This is frustrating me. I have reasons to cry, and I want to cry, but I can't cry.

Well, the point of this post is not to post about my laundry list of complaints or guilt.

I think it's important to tell about what's going on here in Mali. I like putting it out there as a writer, because I think it makes these things more relateable to the readers.

My dad always reinforces for me that when I get back to America, I will have learned more about myself than I ever knew. That I will have challenged myself in ways I cannot imagine. That I will grow enormously from this experience.

I always appreciate his input, and he is totes right. I am growing. Every moment I survive here, I am challenging myself and growing from it.

So, here is my quest for my deep inner search. My search to pull things out of me I didn't know I had. To overcome obstacle after obstacle and triumph, maybe bruised and bitten, but eventually, triumphantly, whether it's metaphorically or literally.

I know what I need to do, I just need to do it. Instead of talking about it, I need to go out into village, talk with and greet, and get to know my village and its people. I just need to do it.

Other volunteers have said that the time after IST was their hardest time in all of Mali. So, the Malian blues and the deep inner search are totes normal. That's good to know.

I'm giving myself two weeks to kick integration #2's ass, and then I will reward myself, possibly, with a trip to Bamako for the newbie volunteer's swear in party. The last swear in party (my stage) was tiiiighhhhhhht!!!

One day at a time. Dooni dooni. Deep inner search. Be proactive. Fake it til you can make it. This stage is totally normal. A positive attitude is your best friend. Just get to know Mali. No expectations, just roll with it. Keep on keeping on.

I can do this. This is my deep inner search. When I get over this part of my service I will be a much stronger person. Here we go.

Piles of little dead bodies...day in the life

When I woke up today, there were piles of little dead bodies in my bathroom.

Hundreds of little dead ant bodies. Last night, I got attacked by literally hundreds of ants. Sitting on my mini toilet, I kept feeling little things crawling all over my feet, legs and butt. I was shaking my legs out and slapping them off of me while I was in the bathroom. Then, I started hosing them with perfume to hopefully poison them.

When I got up from the mini toilet, I looked down and saw a black mass movement from the deep cracks surrounding my mini toilet to the toilet bowl. It was a vibrating mass of black, tiny little ants building a fortress on my mini toilet.

Then I looked down, and realized the ants were everywhere in my bathroom. There was a thick, black belt of them next to my bathroom door, at least hundreds of them.

And today, as I hand-washed my clothes, my wooden stick chair was teetering. And sawdust-looking piles were everywhere my chair had been in my house. Looks like I have a case of the ants AND termite infestation.

Little freaks.

Tomorrow, I am going to meet the mayor of my town. Yesterday, I went to a big party at an NGO, called SOS Village Enfants, for four hours (think of sitting in a concrete block building, sweating like you're in a sauna, while watching little kids dance for four hours = that was my day). The NGO is a French NGO that provides housing and schooling for children whose parents can't afford to send them to school.

The party was for its graduation or something. The president of my service, Sabou, and two other members of my service, were honorary guests who presented the awards to the kids.

True to Malian form, they had me sit in the very front row of the party and someone from my service introduced me to the hundreds of Malians there.

People kept coming up to me after the party and saying "I Coulibaly," which is a way to acknowledge someone's last name respectfully.

Most of the parties like this are all the same. This one involved all the "important" people sitting in special chairs in the very front, facing the crowd. The mayor, school directors, dugutigi (but Kita doesn't have a dugutigi) and employees at the mayor's office usually sit up there. Also true to Malian form, only two women out of about 20 men were in these "important" seats.

(Mali, we really need to work on getting women in positions of power in your country - but I digress. Dooni Dooni)

The school kids do skits where they act out Malian scenarios, sing and dance.

One song they sung was about being poor, one was acting out women cooking and men hanging out. One looked like a Malian dance team with pom poms (all girls).

After a set of skits, the kids received prizes. I think it was for the best students in the class. They got mosquito nets, notebooks, pens, yogurt, pop, etc.

It also started with about 20 minutes of thank-yous and introductions, again, true to Malian form. Things here never start on time and when they do, expect up to an hour of introductions first.

There were hundreds of Malians there, so it was a good thing to spend my time on, getting all that Malian attention. I was the only white person there, so it's not like I could hide out.

Today, I cleaned every inch of my house, did laundry for a few hours and went on a bike ride around my village. I'm also still listening to "Who's that Chick" by Rhianna and some guy on repeat. It's already in the Top 25 on my Ipod.

I also cooked garlic mashed potatoes while jamming out to some Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Beyonce, Rhianna, The Cure and Mariah Carey. One of the other Kita Kaw (people whose region is also Kita) made some sugar cookies with makeshift chocolate frosting and it was soooo delicious.

But, in reality, I'm struggling here. It's going. I am "dooni" as Malians say. It will be fine in a few days, it's just a struggle to get up and get motivated on a minute-to-minute basis.

That sounds horrible, but things aren't horrible. It's just hard to stay motivated. I've been in this place before, and I always get right back up and in the game...I just need to get used to the idea that this is it.

Tomorrow is the mayor's office, some other dude, the rest of my furniture comes and I'm hitting up my other service - the girls' sewing school - to spend time with them.

Cheers, love and mohawks,

Check out the side of the new mohawk - not spiked, but you get the drift. 

LV

Thoughts from first real day at site

First real day at site: I am satisfied with myself today. I kicked today's ass.

Peace Corps has been really difficult lately - and in addition to my site change, which has its own challenges, it's like pulling teeth to go back to a new site after spending one month with your friends having fun. But, today, I went into my community. And it was a super productive day.

I think a lot of why I've been dreading going back to site has to do with a long-time-coming realization: Mali is real (the fact that I'm here is real). And it's really freaking poor. There is real poverty here and problems that a lot of us feel like we can never, ever make a dent in fixing.

Like the starving kid I saw sleeping on a potato sack on the ground last Saturday. The butt of his soiled pants was torn off. And the shacks I see on an everyday basis here, clutching together by a thread.

But, today was a good example of exactly how to make a dent in Mali's problems - keep on keeping on. Push through, even when things seem too big to overcome.

During my bike ride to my service today, I realized my month long vacation has done a number on my body. But, that's a different story. Anyway, everyone was so happy to see me today. I couldn't even believe I had dreaded going there. These are the nicest people on the planet.

My goal was to just hang out today. But I was surprised when I was able to hang ALL day, almost seven hours, and speak Bambara so well. My Bambara is a helluva lot better than I thought.

My service is amazing. But really, the woman who runs it is the backbone of that organization's success. Everyone who knows her comments on how bad ass she is.

She runs the service, which makes shea butter and exports it to other countries in Africa. The service also runs a grainery and restaurant. There's a women's garden there. They make shea butter, dish washing soap, shea soap, peanut butter (yes, from scratch), Baobab powder for cooking, Baobab candy, honey (from scratch), Bogolan (the awesome mud and leave-dyed fabric of Mali), carpet, dry onions and tomatoes, dye fabric and store and sell rice. That's quite a lot of skills for one person to have, let alone an organization in which most of the people are handicapped, especially in a place like Mali, where Malians think persons with disabilities cannot work. These women (and a few men) kick some serious ass in that department.

They do it all while sitting in these makeshift wheel chairs they have to crank with their arms in a circle. There are no brakes on the wheel chairs, they just stop it with their hands on the wheel. A lot of them are made out of steel and wood. I think a lot of them are handicapped because of polio.

Today, I ate dege for breakfast. Dege is a breakfast food here in Mali that doesn't exist in America. It's kind of like yogurt, sugar, millet, powdered milk and maybe something else all mixed together, refridgerated and put into a sachet to drink from. It's my favorite for b-fast.

Anyway, I didn't eat all of mine, so I gave it to Sabou, the badass woman I keep mentioning, who is also serving as one of my homologues.

In return, she brought a traveling meat salesman to the service (shea yoro la, as we say in Bambara) to hand pick the best goat meat for me to give me. It was delicious, and unlike a bunch of Malian meat, it didn't have shards of bones stuck in it and it wasn't brains or stomach. (goat stomach meat looks like shag carpet, it's gross)

I got into a conversation with them about how the eagle is America's bird, and then we started talking about owls. Malians are really superstitious. There are at least two animals that I know they're really scared of, because they think they're really witches who will eat people or perform creepy magic on them. These are toads and owls.

Well, the one guy was not afraid of toads. He went and picked up a toad and told me how toads make great medicine here in Mali.

Now, I've heard some messed up shit here in Mali. I've been guilty of judging Malians, thinking, "I CANNOT believe people believe this!!" But this took the cake.

The guy told me that you can rub a toad belly on your forehead if you have a headache. But then, it got more shocking (that people actually believe this)...he said if your eye hurts, you should cut open a toad and pour its blood into your eye. And your eyeache will go away.

To make matters more interesting, another traveling meat salesman came at this time, and was selling goat brains.

On a less creepy note, they did tell me that God is happy when people dance. There's a saying here that's something like, when a person dances, he/she is happy, so God is happy too.

After hanging out for a while, I went into the market to get some stuff for my new house and I ended up having the best conversations with my community members. I made some goals last night, including describing who I am and introducing myself to as many people who would listen.


Other goals for this week:
--Dancing when I'm stressed
--Going outside and being in the community when I feel like closing myself in my house instead
--Learn the way (without getting lost) to both of my services
--Start working out again (IST severely ruined my workout streak)
--Check out the CSCOM (hospital), school house and mayor's office
--Hire my tutor

I think I had the best bargaining tactics I've ever used, and I got everything today for a great price. I also found a Kansas City Chiefs T-shirt in what we call the "dead Toubab" piles of clothes.

"Dead Toubab" piles are clothes donated from mostly America that Malians buy for usually the equivalent of 10-20 cents. "Dead Toubab" piles are 1) a saving grace for me here in Mali and 2) the reason why you see "Ganja farmer," "Gang bang me" and other T-shirts in English that Malians can't read. Seriously, those are t-shirts we've seen on Malians here.

I bought nails, headphones, potatoes, clothes from the "Dead Toubab" piles, a bathroom mat and a hand-made broom from the sugu (market), and bargained my ass off in perfect Bambara on them all.

Then I came home, arranged stuff in my house (still unpacking, but it's looking like a home), listened to the new Rhianna song on repeat and did some laundry by hand. It's been a good day.

Sometimes I am sad that I have no big family here in Kita. My last host family consisted of more than 20 people. My host family now is an old lady, who looks about 80, and her two grand daughters, 16 and 11 years old. It's a large, but empty concession. But I don't have people up in my business 24 hours a day.

I am able to walk places by myself, hang out in my house without being bothered and hit up the stage house whenever I want, and no one is there to stick by my side. I thought that would bother me, but I love the independence here.

I can't imagine staying here for more than a month without leaving, but I am taking it one day at a time at this point. This second-time-around-integration is going to be challenging, but I know I can tackle it. Little by little = dooni dooni as I say every day here.