PICS - We teach how to fish, not to eat.

There has been a lot going on lately: Hunger Awareness Week, my "chat tour" and stepping forward into a new place in my Peace Corps service.

Hunger Awareness Week is going decently well. It is challenging to eat enough healthy food on $1 a day, but it's been enlightening (more to come on that in another post). Tomorrow, I go to my women's sewing school to meet the new class of students and get a stronger picture into the type of work I'll be doing there, as their business teacher.

Sleepin' on the job...   :)

There are a ton of things going on in my Peace Corps service as well. I am hitting a new phase in my service where I can sorta speak the language, and I'm feeling comfortable and accepted in my village.

To learning new things about myself, Mali and the world. (This pic is of me the last time I went hiking on the Kita mountain)

Feeling accepted and integrated
I've been in Mali long enough to itch to start working, but I am still new to Kita, and I don't feel ready to start working yet. During PST, I was voted "Most Intense Greeter." So, to no surprise, I greet so many people every day that sometimes I duck out and take different paths to work so I don't have to greet for literally almost an hour. I can't walk down a single street on my way to the market or work, without at least 15 people yelling out my name, greeting and wanting to chat:

"Hey Ramata!!!! How are you?? How's your family? How's your extended family? Did you sleep in peace? It's been a long time (even if I saw them yesterday)! Where have you been? Are you going to come chat with us later? Come drink tea! Here, sit down. Let's chat. Let's joke. Oh! Your last name is Coulibaly! Coulibaly is bad!! Coulibaly eats beans! Coulibaly sleeps in the nyegen! Haha You said I speak donkey! Oh my god! That's so funny! You're leaving? Already??! Oh, sit down, let's chat some more. Ok, you're leaving. Come back later and let's chat and drink tea. Ok! Goodbye! See you later! Greet them for us! Bye!"

That's every conversation when I stop to greet. Multiply that by 15 people and you understand why it takes so long to walk to work! It's great because I am getting integrated...but it can be exhausting.

Feeling integrated gives me a sense of accomplishment here, and it will drastically help me in the long-run. The more time I spend with the right people... chatting, drinking tea, wandering around, greeting and building relationships (my only responsibility for my first few months here)... the more successful I will be in the future.

In America, we are all about time, time, time (aka money). We hardly have time to say "Hello." We don't stop to greet all of our co-workers, like you do here. And when we do spend time building relationships, there's usually a motive. But, here, people just build relationships because that's the most valuable thing they have.

This is my women's coop president, Sabou, and me on Seli fitini, or the end of Ramadan. Seli fitini is one of the biggest and most important days of the year, in which they break the month-long fasting of Ramadan and eat some good food! (especially meat). What's really important - is that they share their food, give blessings asking for long lives and forgive each other, of everything, for that day.

Entering the next phase
I am at a place where I can finally, finally understand what the hell people are saying. I've been here for almost eight months. Imagine not understanding anything around you for almost a year! Listening and speaking in a language you barely know, all day, struggling to understand...is exhausting. But, my hard work and relentless studying are paying off, and my Bambara skills are improving.

Now that I can finally understand more of what people are saying, and I can communicate better - I am ready to start small projects. I mean, small and simple projects - such as formations on hand washing, connecting people together or basic English classes.

A month ago, I wouldn't have thought I might feel comfortable starting even tiny projects now. That's a thing in PC - you never know. This whole experience is a roller coaster. You don't know what is going to work, what isn't. One day you'll feel like a wreck, and the next, everything works. One day you understand and speak the language really well, and the next day... people laugh and tell you you can't speak. It's just a roller coaster in general.

The Peace Corps is a very unique organization
I wouldn't take the roller coaster back for anything. It makes Peace Corps exactly the special and unique organization that it is. You get the highs...with the lows. Peace Corps is not an NGO that comes into a country and pays for huge projects. Peace Corps doesn't build expensive water systems, schools, machines. Peace Corps doesn't hand out gift boxes for Christmas or sums of money to poor communities. Peace Corps doesn't build buildings, we don't give people things, we don't throw money at problems.

As I explained to an old woman today who asked me to give her money:

"I am a Peace Corps volunteer. The Peace Corps doesn't give money to people. Because - soon - that money will be all gone, and the person is left with nothing. They can't work, they can't do anything. Instead, we help people work. We work together. We study our villages, its people, the culture, the language and the needs here. When we learn what our village needs, we teach people skills so that they can improve their villages themselves. So that they can work themselves. We teach people how to fish, but we don't teach them how to eat."

We teach people how to fish, but we don't teach them how to eat.

The PC is unique because we don't dump money on these extremely poor, developing, low capacity, unorganized countries. Instead, we go grassroots - living in small, isolated, disconnected, rural villages (most of us, at least here in Mali).

We learn the local language. It would be more helpful for us to learn French because French is useful outside of Mali. And the educated, science, education and business people speak French. Instead, we learn the real language the average person speaks.

It illustrates our commitment to understanding the community and living at Malians' level. Speaking in the local language allows us to reach the people who need our help the most (because the women, rural populations and the uneducated usually don't speak French).

In addition, the Peace Corps pays us very modest salaries. Peace Corps gives us these salaries so that we don't live extravagantly, so that we live at the level of the people we serve (we're still earning a lot more than most Malians, but it's very minimal compared to salaries for other aid groups). A lot of NGO's employees here get paid an American salary, seriously making more money than they could ever spend.

She works at Si Nafa and braids hair for a living. It's actually a somewhat "lucrative" career for  a Malian woman. She said that per customer, she might make between 100 CFAs to 5,000 CFAs (for big events, such as Seli fitini, for ex). PC really focuses on us trying to understand the economics and cultural forces at play in our host countries.

I found this guy living in an abandoned factory when I went bike riding one day. His bed is a  wooden log bed. His stove is a small fire, kept alive by these sticks. His shelter is this old factory. And his water comes from an old gasoline bucket. He was an incredibly nice guy. To a little more understanding...

This is my "brother," as we say here. We share the same last name, so that automatically makes them your brother or sister.

The Peace Corps is special because its approach is centered on our intimate knowledge of the people, culture and communities we serve. I've been here eight months and I haven't technically started working yet. We spend at least the first three months with only one goal: delving deep into the culture and habits of our communities to know their needs.

Nothing is more important than getting to know the real needs of my community first. Oftentimes, organizations skip into countries such as Mali, see they need something, and then dump their solution on the people, without knowing anything about the people, culture or needs first. The people aren't taught skills, how to sustain what they've been given, how to fix the problem at hand...instead, oftentimes, they're just given a temporary fix..and it's usually expensive and impossible for the average person to acquire themselves. So, they become dependent on that aid.

The solutions dumped on these poor countries are not catered to the way of life and customs of those countries. What's the point of building someone a pump when no one is taught to use it or fix it? What's the point of building a school in a country with no capacity for upkeep, no teachers to hire, no money for its bills and no way to run it? What's the point of doing a training on making soap when the people can't acquire or afford  the ingredients? What's the point of giving a community a $30,000 garden planted during the wrong season with the incompatible crops, for an insane cost, that ended up dying right away? (that actually happened here)

We take a "Do no harm" approach...a very slow one, indeed, but, I believe, the right approach. When we really understand the culture, the people, the seasons, the economy, the spending habits, the challenges, how people react...then we can teach them skills that they can sustain...on their own. We can help them acquire what they really need and then build from there.

Places such as Mali don't move fast. They creeeeep. They are attached to the way they do things and they don't want to change. And when you have something as magnificent as another's culture...you want to be very careful to preserve that culture while just helping improve the quality of life there.

Projects?
So far, I have started a radio show with another volunteer and I've connected a few people with networking opportunities.

My radio show is with another volunteer every Wednesday. Our show is from 4:00-5:00 P.M. and it's LIVE! We are allowed to discuss any topic we choose and basically do whatever we want.

Like everything in Mali, we are going to ease ourselves into it, establish relationships with our listeners and choose our topics based on what our listeners' needs are. Tomorrow's show will entail American and Malian story-telling, greetings, introducing ourselves and explaining the role of the Peace Corps.

Also, I've connected a few people through networking opportunities. I just completed the shea business boot camp at Tubaniso, so I shared everything I learned with my service, Si Nafa. I told them what I learned about high quality shea (because Malian shea has a bad reputation for being low quality). I showed them shea from Bamako (again, idea exchange is key). And I explained the new uses I found for shea (skin smoother, soothes burnt or aging skin, good for entire body, for colds, coughs, when it's cold, etc etc) and gave them the contact information for other shea producers in Mali.

The exchange of ideas here is very valuable. Because the Malian education system is so poor and focused on memorization, they don't learn the skill/value of thinking outside the box, creativity, or individual expression. Emphasizing creativity is important because Malians will do things exactly how they've seen it in the past. They will make their products exactly like their neighbor, and they won't expand into new opportunities.

Chillin' and chattin' with the kids at my service, promoting creativity and the importance of art and individual expression. (With the crayons Joyce sent me...thank you!)

Additionally, I've noticed Si Nafa is physically separated by the compound's gate upon entering. It's in a great location - right inside the daily market - but it's complicated to find the actual store. Most people sell in the middle of the market, right there where everyone walks. Unless you physically walk up a small hill, into the compound, past the gate and the guys chatting, and under the hangar, you won't find Si Nafa's products.

Fortunately for us, they (rare to Malian nature) acted proactively and began building a storefront to battle this challenge. We're going to be working on radio ads and other promotions and advertising in the coming months. Excited!

I think it would be very valuable for them to have a physical presence in the market, in boutiques, in stores, in Alimentations (upscale butikis w/more options and usually more expensive products), in places with more foot traffic. Basically, I want them everywhere. I want their shea everywhere it can possibly be. But, I'm putting the brakes on myself and approaching this very slowly, so I know I'm making the right moves for the situation at hand.

Looking at pictures with the people at Si Nafa

So, I talked to my service about trying to sell their shea butter, soap and Baobab candy to the local Alimentation. I talked to the owner of the Alimentation, and he said to show him the stuff and maybe they can work together. So, I showed him their products and let him try them. But, I was very careful not to "sell" the product FOR my service - because that's not sustainable.

If I sell it for them, they're not learning those skills themselves. So, first, I just made sure he was actually interested, and I didn't grossly misunderstand (which happens often, when you barely speak the language). Our next step is for someone from my service to talk to him and hopefully they'll agree on things/prices themselves. That way, all I did was just connect people. I brought my American ideas of networking to Mali.

And that is the kind of thing Peace Corps volunteers do.

Working with kids to promote artistic expression and thinking outside the box through drawing and coloring.

My other networking connection was with the new restaurant in town. They have a huge murual of an ice cream cone painted on the front of their restaurant. So, for months, we asked them when the ice cream was coming. Almost two months later, the restaurant finally got "ice cream." And I add it in quotes because it is the weirdest ice cream I've ever had!

It tastes very thick and heavy and it's not that cold :-( Granted, I'm in Mali, and basically everything is poorer quality than American products, but I can offer ideas on how to improve it so that the owner can sell more, and turn a higher profit (if he's doing accounting and actually making a profit at all).

I gave that feedback to the owner after Kita volunteers all confirmed the taste was strange. I called my friend in Bamako, who went to a soft serve ice cream place for me, and she gave me the Bamako store's name and number. I gave it to the guy and described that this guy's ice cream tasted good, Toubabs like it and it would be an enriching way for him to improve his product. The idea of networking can be really powerful here. So, hopefully this guy will figure it out improve the ice cream.

Excited about
I'm very excited about a few things: Cold season coming up, finding a big host family, my "chat tour" and feeling comfortable in my site.

The Rainy season is almost over, thank Goddess. Rainy season, as I wrote in my blog entitled "The Presence of The Rain," has been treacherous. It's been raining, downpouring, almost every day here in Kita. You can't leave your house and the dirt roads get disgusting. They turn into nyegen run-off rivers you have no choice but to walk through. Not only do you have to walk through other peoples' shit and pee, but you risk the chance of getting an infection (Schisto) from walking through peoples' shit. So...I'm very happy for the Cold season that's coming!

Here in the world's furnace, it's always hot. I mean, HOT. During hot season, it wasn't uncommon to experience 120+ degree heat every single day and night. You can't sleep. You can't walk around. You can't do anything because you're HOT and drenched at all times. During Rainy season, the roads turn into rivers and shit pools and you get trapped in the place you were when it started raining. But, for Cold Season, the weather drops to the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s...and it gets really nice (that's what I hear at least). So, as you can tell, I'm pumped for a season without monsoons or heat exhaustion.

Also, I found a missing piece in Kita for which I've been yearning to find. It's a big host family. My former site had me living with a huge host family, with 20 people with me at all times. I felt fulfilled because I had a direct impact on their lives. When I would wash my hands with soap, brush my teeth in public, or study Bambara, I was making an impact, showing them that these are habits that improve lives.

Here, my host family consists of two people who are always gone. I love them, but it's just not the same. So, finally, I found a huge host family I really like. It's my friend, Fili's family. Fili has been working with vols for years now. I sit with her and chat while she sells things in the market.

On Friday, I went to her house with her, met her huge family (with tons of other families all living in the same compound), and ended up eating with them and then playing soccer with a deflated, dirty soccer ball with about 15 little kids. It gave me that sense of belonging and fulfilment I've been searching for since I left my former site.

Lastly, I'm going on a "chat tour." My "chat tour" entails me stopping to chat with random people with whom I don't normally chat. For months, I've been promising dozens and dozens of people I'll sit and chat with them, and I haven't. So, as of last week, one of my goals is to get a lot of real chatting time in. It's all about the relationships here.

This is Younousa, Sabou's son, and me, after we spent the day making bogolan (mud-dyed fabric) and coloring.

It's all about the chatting.

Peace, adventures and mohawks!

PS - More details to come on Hunger Awareness Week. It's been...hard!