Hey remember the Standells and Oldies radio? I barely do anymore...
Anyway, I doubt the Charles is THIS bad.
Thanks to you, my fundraisers and tireless supporters, I was able to start my long awaited soak pit project last month. Since April 18th, we have made FANTASTIC progress. As of today, my village has 155 latrines with new soak pits! "What is a soak pit?" you might ask. I don't imagine anyone not in the Peace Corps really cares about the answer to that question, but my father seems to disagree. He can be quite convincing, so I put together a little photo album detailing the work we're doing with your hard-earned dollars. Check it out here. For a review on the need for soak pits, you can also see my previous blog post requesting funds for the project here.
'Cause I hate that dirty water. Oh, Mali, you're my home...
mercredi 27 mai 2009
mardi 28 avril 2009
"Electioneering"
This is Samba. Today Samba will vote for a new mayor.
See Samba travel to his polling place.
Good thing it's clearly marked!
See Samba check the list for his name.
There he is!
See Samba wait in line. 
This is Samba's voter registration card.
Do YOU have a voter registration card?
Do YOU have a voter registration card?
See Samba receive his ballot.
This is Samba's ballot. Which party would YOU choose?
See Samba cast his vote.
Just kidding, silly!
Samba marks his ballot in secret like a good boy.
Just kidding, silly!
Samba marks his ballot in secret like a good boy.
See Samba put his vote in a box.
See Samba sign his name. Samba is a smart boy! He can write his name with a pen instead of his fingerprint.
See Samba get inked.
Samba has now voted. Way to go, Samba!
I ye fasoden nyuman ye! You are a good citizen!
mardi 21 avril 2009
"No Nuts No Glory"
Yeah, Geto Boys, I went there.
I thought I would change it up a little and show you good people something you've never seen here before: evidence of work I've done. Starting on Easter Day (you know, because we don't really celebrate the Risen Savior around here) I hosted a training session for local women on improved shea butter making. If you're a girl, you may have noticed shea butter as an ingredient in various soaps and lotions and things. Shea butter is extracted from the shea kernel which is located inside the shea nut which is located inside the shea fruit which comes from the shea tree. Shea is only found along a strip of West and Central Africa and is mainly a woman's domain. Rural women collect fallen shea fruit on their ways to and from the fields during planting season. They then store the nuts until they have time to process them into butter, which is used for cooking, skin care, hair care, and in traditional medicine. Since shea butter making is the woman's duty, development projects concerning shea are a great way to target improvements in the lives of children since (theoretically) women spend the money they earn on family needs. Unfortunately, Malian women have been practicing bad shea storage and processing methods for... well forever I guess. Unlike women in other areas of the "Shea Belt" (for example, Burkina Faso and Ghana), Malians store their nuts in pits and smoke them on ovens - practices that lead to mold and carcinogens in the final product. That's why big European and American cosmetics companies won't buy Malian shea butter.
Good thing Mali PCVs like myself are changing the world, one shea butter training at a time. I had 83 women show up in my village for two days of shea butter education and demonstration. It was quite the party. Hopefully, in addition to having a good time, the women will go back to their respective communities preaching the gospel of boiled (not smoked!) nuts and slowly work on improving Mali's shea reputation in the world. See it all in action here.
Also here:
I thought I would change it up a little and show you good people something you've never seen here before: evidence of work I've done. Starting on Easter Day (you know, because we don't really celebrate the Risen Savior around here) I hosted a training session for local women on improved shea butter making. If you're a girl, you may have noticed shea butter as an ingredient in various soaps and lotions and things. Shea butter is extracted from the shea kernel which is located inside the shea nut which is located inside the shea fruit which comes from the shea tree. Shea is only found along a strip of West and Central Africa and is mainly a woman's domain. Rural women collect fallen shea fruit on their ways to and from the fields during planting season. They then store the nuts until they have time to process them into butter, which is used for cooking, skin care, hair care, and in traditional medicine. Since shea butter making is the woman's duty, development projects concerning shea are a great way to target improvements in the lives of children since (theoretically) women spend the money they earn on family needs. Unfortunately, Malian women have been practicing bad shea storage and processing methods for... well forever I guess. Unlike women in other areas of the "Shea Belt" (for example, Burkina Faso and Ghana), Malians store their nuts in pits and smoke them on ovens - practices that lead to mold and carcinogens in the final product. That's why big European and American cosmetics companies won't buy Malian shea butter.
Good thing Mali PCVs like myself are changing the world, one shea butter training at a time. I had 83 women show up in my village for two days of shea butter education and demonstration. It was quite the party. Hopefully, in addition to having a good time, the women will go back to their respective communities preaching the gospel of boiled (not smoked!) nuts and slowly work on improving Mali's shea reputation in the world. See it all in action here.
Also here:
jeudi 5 mars 2009
"Be Our Guest"
Please welcome guest blogger Julia B. Dyer (aka Mom) as she shares her thoughts on the highlights (and lowlights) of making the trek through Mali...
In January of ’09, Jim and I went to another world. We went to Mali, West Africa, to visit Susie on the last leg of her volunteer commitment to the Peace Corps. For the past 19 months she has been living in a small village in Mali with no running water, two lightbulbs and an outlet 5 hours a day and a diet consisting of a gray-green cream of wheat type mush called “to” (toe), eaten with the fingers out of a communal bowl. She had told us a bit about her lifestyle each time she could make her way to a nearby town with an internet café and email us so we had an idea about what to expect. When we arrived at the Bamako airport, we walked outside the terminal to find Susie. There she was, the one white face among hundreds of others waiting for passengers. When she saw me she ducked under the rope and as we smiled and hugged, all the other people who had been standing around her lit up as well. They seemed so genuinely happy to witness our reunion. This was my first hint that the Malian people are largely a happy group. After a day in the Peace Corps house in San where PCVs stay when they come from their villages to go to the bank, post office and internet café, our driver, Bakary, drove us to her village in Kimparana. This was our chance to meet her host family, take a tour of the village and see exactly where Susie is when we picture her working, eating, sleeping and being.
Of course, all my friends wanted to know how I dealt with the bathroom and the food. Everyone knows the bathroom is a hole in the floor. Luckily, Susie has a hole of her own right there in her hut, a luxury afforded a very few. Most folks are aware that the ground millet cooked over a fire and served hot, is the ubiquitous meal. It was easy to get used to the bathroom arrangements. Susie gave me a quick lesson and I had brought enough toilet paper from home to last me a good two months. The Vanderbilt Travel Clinic where we went for pre-travel vaccinations had advised us to drink only bottled water and not to eat from communal bowls. We had plenty of snack food with us. We ate an adequate amount of the meal prepared by the host family to appear interested. The rest of our meals were taken in restaurants with menu items chosen carefully. (One of us chose a whole lot more carefully than the other.) Yep, that was the easy part. The hard part was watching hungry orphans carrying a plastic bucket around just in case someone had a few bites left from their meal that they were willing to scrape into it. One child stopped me to have me pour the last third of my soft drink into his pail instead of discarding it.
As we walked through the village everyone greeted Susie and us as if we were American dignitaries, carrying on in Bambara, their native tongue with Susie answering their formulaic banter so adeptly that the people gave me credit for knowing the language! It is the cold season in Mali and days were a heavenly 75 or so. For the citizens, however, it was freezing. Babies were dressed in snowsuits, heavy jackets and any other pieces of cold weather clothing they had.
The huts are built in groups, surrounded by a privacy wall. These concessions , as they are known, have a communal open air toilet hole. Beside it, a shallow trench is dug to carry the waste wash water a few yards away where it sits on the ground. Most people step around it but small children and animals walk right through it as if it were not there. It is here that mosquitoes and other insects and bacteria breed. When the stuff does eventually seep down into the ground, it is often just feet from the family’s well. Get the picture? Of course you do.
We visited a clinic (and I use the term loosely) which had just recently added a place for delivering babies. This was to help improve the odds of a delivering mother living to care for the baby. The doctor there showed us a room where babies are delivered. Mind you, there is no water or electricity, just a table and a poster on the wall showing 4 steps to delivering. After the birth, the baby and mother are monitored every hour for 6 hours then moved to a room where there are 2 rows of beds. (Think summer camp.) Obviously this is a vast improvement over delivering at home and taking a big chance on bleeding to death, but it looked pretty grim to me.
To cut to the chase, Susie and I discussed the villagers’ life, good attitude and marveled at it in the face of appalling living conditions. Her remarks during that walk struck me; Susie said she didn’t want to necessarily change the people’s way of life. She just wants to help them be able to drink decent water so they can live long enough to get some amount of education and plot their own course. That’s why she is currently fundraising to conduct a clean water project in her remaining months. I thought that was pretty cool.
In January of ’09, Jim and I went to another world. We went to Mali, West Africa, to visit Susie on the last leg of her volunteer commitment to the Peace Corps. For the past 19 months she has been living in a small village in Mali with no running water, two lightbulbs and an outlet 5 hours a day and a diet consisting of a gray-green cream of wheat type mush called “to” (toe), eaten with the fingers out of a communal bowl. She had told us a bit about her lifestyle each time she could make her way to a nearby town with an internet café and email us so we had an idea about what to expect. When we arrived at the Bamako airport, we walked outside the terminal to find Susie. There she was, the one white face among hundreds of others waiting for passengers. When she saw me she ducked under the rope and as we smiled and hugged, all the other people who had been standing around her lit up as well. They seemed so genuinely happy to witness our reunion. This was my first hint that the Malian people are largely a happy group. After a day in the Peace Corps house in San where PCVs stay when they come from their villages to go to the bank, post office and internet café, our driver, Bakary, drove us to her village in Kimparana. This was our chance to meet her host family, take a tour of the village and see exactly where Susie is when we picture her working, eating, sleeping and being.
Of course, all my friends wanted to know how I dealt with the bathroom and the food. Everyone knows the bathroom is a hole in the floor. Luckily, Susie has a hole of her own right there in her hut, a luxury afforded a very few. Most folks are aware that the ground millet cooked over a fire and served hot, is the ubiquitous meal. It was easy to get used to the bathroom arrangements. Susie gave me a quick lesson and I had brought enough toilet paper from home to last me a good two months. The Vanderbilt Travel Clinic where we went for pre-travel vaccinations had advised us to drink only bottled water and not to eat from communal bowls. We had plenty of snack food with us. We ate an adequate amount of the meal prepared by the host family to appear interested. The rest of our meals were taken in restaurants with menu items chosen carefully. (One of us chose a whole lot more carefully than the other.) Yep, that was the easy part. The hard part was watching hungry orphans carrying a plastic bucket around just in case someone had a few bites left from their meal that they were willing to scrape into it. One child stopped me to have me pour the last third of my soft drink into his pail instead of discarding it.
As we walked through the village everyone greeted Susie and us as if we were American dignitaries, carrying on in Bambara, their native tongue with Susie answering their formulaic banter so adeptly that the people gave me credit for knowing the language! It is the cold season in Mali and days were a heavenly 75 or so. For the citizens, however, it was freezing. Babies were dressed in snowsuits, heavy jackets and any other pieces of cold weather clothing they had.
The huts are built in groups, surrounded by a privacy wall. These concessions , as they are known, have a communal open air toilet hole. Beside it, a shallow trench is dug to carry the waste wash water a few yards away where it sits on the ground. Most people step around it but small children and animals walk right through it as if it were not there. It is here that mosquitoes and other insects and bacteria breed. When the stuff does eventually seep down into the ground, it is often just feet from the family’s well. Get the picture? Of course you do.
We visited a clinic (and I use the term loosely) which had just recently added a place for delivering babies. This was to help improve the odds of a delivering mother living to care for the baby. The doctor there showed us a room where babies are delivered. Mind you, there is no water or electricity, just a table and a poster on the wall showing 4 steps to delivering. After the birth, the baby and mother are monitored every hour for 6 hours then moved to a room where there are 2 rows of beds. (Think summer camp.) Obviously this is a vast improvement over delivering at home and taking a big chance on bleeding to death, but it looked pretty grim to me.
To cut to the chase, Susie and I discussed the villagers’ life, good attitude and marveled at it in the face of appalling living conditions. Her remarks during that walk struck me; Susie said she didn’t want to necessarily change the people’s way of life. She just wants to help them be able to drink decent water so they can live long enough to get some amount of education and plot their own course. That’s why she is currently fundraising to conduct a clean water project in her remaining months. I thought that was pretty cool.
mercredi 4 février 2009
"Money (That's What I Want)"
I haven’t mentioned it much (if at all) on these pages, but I’m working on a project in village. I may be a Small Business Development Volunteer, but, as many of the PCVs in my sector have discovered with me, there often seem to be more pressing needs in the community than teaching every Traore, Keita, or Coulibaly basic accounting. For example, in my town (and virtually every other in Mali) the already dirty (you know, because they’re made of dirt) streets are further sullied by the presence of runoff water from family latrines. My project will address this sanitation problem in the homes of 300 families in my town. If you’ve heard enough and are ready to lend your support, you can go to this website and make a generous monetary gift by debit or credit card. If you are not yet convinced, read on for a more detailed explanation of the dire need for a solution to the dirty water problem. But be warned: it’s not exactly something I’d discuss with Grandmama.
This runoff in the streets is mostly “gray water” leftover from washing dishes and clothes, or people’s bucket baths. However, it is also made up of water used to “clean oneself up” after going to the bathroom or in the event of a missed target (those nyegen holes can be pretty small). You see, Malians do not use toilet paper. At least, the ones without running water don’t. And even some Malians fortunate enough to have a Western toilet still use the rural method anyway. Instead of paper, which is expensive and available only in cities, Malians take what looks like a large plastic tea kettle to the bathroom with them. It’s called a selidaga (pictured above). And it is omnipresent. You would think that a vessel for water used to clear away human waste would stay in the nyegen for that purpose and that purpose alone. But you would be wrong. The selidaga is used for washing hands, as well as feet and face, before each of the day’s five prayers. As it is also used to clean the mouth before prayer, you will often see a person come right out of the bathroom and take a swig directly from the selidaga. If you don’t believe me, ask Julia Dyer. She saw it with her own eyes. But I digress.
Gray and selidaga water from the bathroom has to go somewhere. The current system of nyegen drainage is just a hole at the bottom of the wall, leading into the street. Because if you can’t SEE the dirty water, it must just disappear, right? Out of sight, out of mind. But as you can see from the photos above and below, latrine runoff does not just disappear. I shouldn't have to say that the current situation is disgusting - both visually and olfactorily. That much is evident. What you at home may not think of, though, is that since this dirty water runs every day, absorption becomes difficult. Unable to soak back into the ground, the water becomes stagnant. And open stagnant water is the breeding ground of choice for mosquitoes carrying malaria. According the World Health Organization malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds.
My project aims to build "soak pits" outside the latrines of 300 families in my town to keep dirty runoff water out of the streets. I need your help to raise the funds necessary for the construction materials. Tell your mother. Tell your friends. Especially tell the mother of your rich friends. Spread the word to anyone you think would like to help bring improved sanitation to a West African village. Not only will it make our Malian neighborhood a cleaner and more pleasant place to live, it will make it safer by cutting the mosquito population. Since children seldom sleep under mosquito nets (which they ALL should!), reducing the number of mosquitoes is the next best method for preventing transmission and preventing the deaths of children whose families are too poor to buy medicine. Unfortunately, the San region PCVs can attest to the urgency of this need after a Volunteer's 3 year old host sister died before her father agreed to take her to the doctor. Soak pits can help. Fewer mosquitoes mean less malaria. And less malaria means fewer lives lost. Click here: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-293 or go to www.peacecorps.gov, click Donate Now, and click Donate to Volunteer Projects to see my project (I'm the only Dyer!) and hundreds of others from around the world. Aw ni ce. Aw ni baaraji.
This runoff in the streets is mostly “gray water” leftover from washing dishes and clothes, or people’s bucket baths. However, it is also made up of water used to “clean oneself up” after going to the bathroom or in the event of a missed target (those nyegen holes can be pretty small). You see, Malians do not use toilet paper. At least, the ones without running water don’t. And even some Malians fortunate enough to have a Western toilet still use the rural method anyway. Instead of paper, which is expensive and available only in cities, Malians take what looks like a large plastic tea kettle to the bathroom with them. It’s called a selidaga (pictured above). And it is omnipresent. You would think that a vessel for water used to clear away human waste would stay in the nyegen for that purpose and that purpose alone. But you would be wrong. The selidaga is used for washing hands, as well as feet and face, before each of the day’s five prayers. As it is also used to clean the mouth before prayer, you will often see a person come right out of the bathroom and take a swig directly from the selidaga. If you don’t believe me, ask Julia Dyer. She saw it with her own eyes. But I digress.
Gray and selidaga water from the bathroom has to go somewhere. The current system of nyegen drainage is just a hole at the bottom of the wall, leading into the street. Because if you can’t SEE the dirty water, it must just disappear, right? Out of sight, out of mind. But as you can see from the photos above and below, latrine runoff does not just disappear. I shouldn't have to say that the current situation is disgusting - both visually and olfactorily. That much is evident. What you at home may not think of, though, is that since this dirty water runs every day, absorption becomes difficult. Unable to soak back into the ground, the water becomes stagnant. And open stagnant water is the breeding ground of choice for mosquitoes carrying malaria. According the World Health Organization malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds.
My project aims to build "soak pits" outside the latrines of 300 families in my town to keep dirty runoff water out of the streets. I need your help to raise the funds necessary for the construction materials. Tell your mother. Tell your friends. Especially tell the mother of your rich friends. Spread the word to anyone you think would like to help bring improved sanitation to a West African village. Not only will it make our Malian neighborhood a cleaner and more pleasant place to live, it will make it safer by cutting the mosquito population. Since children seldom sleep under mosquito nets (which they ALL should!), reducing the number of mosquitoes is the next best method for preventing transmission and preventing the deaths of children whose families are too poor to buy medicine. Unfortunately, the San region PCVs can attest to the urgency of this need after a Volunteer's 3 year old host sister died before her father agreed to take her to the doctor. Soak pits can help. Fewer mosquitoes mean less malaria. And less malaria means fewer lives lost. Click here: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-293 or go to www.peacecorps.gov, click Donate Now, and click Donate to Volunteer Projects to see my project (I'm the only Dyer!) and hundreds of others from around the world. Aw ni ce. Aw ni baaraji.
samedi 31 janvier 2009
"Marrakech Express"
I'm back in Bamako after a fun and eventful (mostly in a good way) African adventure with none other than Mr. and Mrs. Mom and Dad Dyer. The flew into la capitale the evening of January 15th for two weeks of African-style fun... you know, getting hot and dusty while being yelled at. We were constantly on the move in order to see as much of Mali as we could. It was a hectic eight days, but we got to experience quite a lot: spending the night in my site and being mauled by dirty children, surviving the swarming-with-mendicants riverfront in Mopti, full day hike in Dogon Country complete with cliff dwellings, elephant-viewing in Gossi. We even made it up to Gao, a land not often reached by tubabs – even Volunteers! Despite the car breakdowns, crowded buses, arguments in Bambara over 25 cents, dirty utensils, lack of indoor plumbing, and general harassment, both my mom and dad did beautifully in handling the typical crises faced by tourists in Mali. I’ll let these pictures do the rest of the story-telling: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2156279&l=e7ee2&id=1404038
Somehow, even before seeing the country with his own eyes, Dad knew that we would be needing a little break after our Malian adventure. So onto Morocco! We flew from Bamako to Casablance then boarded the train to Marrakech. The North African leg of our trip was decidedly more comfortable, less frantically-paced, and tastier than the West African one. Trust me - after the chaos of Mali, the legendary bustle of a Marrakchi souk is no big deal. In addition to exploring Marrakech (with AND without the help of GPS), we got to spend a day in the High Atlas Mountains admiring Moroccan highway engineering, snow, and baby goats. Again, in lieu of stories, take a look at these: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2156362&l=3d823&id=1404038
The entire trip was the classic definition of an adventure: something you’re glad you did, but only after it’s over. To hear more, stay tuned for the ponderings of guest blogger Julia B. Dyer! Until then, TAS is OUT.
Somehow, even before seeing the country with his own eyes, Dad knew that we would be needing a little break after our Malian adventure. So onto Morocco! We flew from Bamako to Casablance then boarded the train to Marrakech. The North African leg of our trip was decidedly more comfortable, less frantically-paced, and tastier than the West African one. Trust me - after the chaos of Mali, the legendary bustle of a Marrakchi souk is no big deal. In addition to exploring Marrakech (with AND without the help of GPS), we got to spend a day in the High Atlas Mountains admiring Moroccan highway engineering, snow, and baby goats. Again, in lieu of stories, take a look at these: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2156362&l=3d823&id=1404038
The entire trip was the classic definition of an adventure: something you’re glad you did, but only after it’s over. To hear more, stay tuned for the ponderings of guest blogger Julia B. Dyer! Until then, TAS is OUT.
vendredi 16 janvier 2009
"Long Long Long"
I know, it's been too long. But I have had a lot going on over the last few months (including Thanksgiving in Sikasso, Christmas in Bamako with a real American Xmas dinner!, New Year's in Paris, and a project application in the works) and little time for blog posting and email writing. (However, I did somehow find the time for Facebook posting and email reading...) It is 7:37 AM Bamako time as I write this, and my parents are hopefully asleep under their mosquito net in the hotel down the street (aka dirt road). That or they're lying awake under their mosquito net wondering, "What in the world have I gotten myself into?" For they are here in Mali - that filthy, bustling place I have called my home for the last 18 months. We have a jam-packed 8 days in country followed by a 5 day rest in Morocco. Dad has already gotten the camera out, so I'm sure the trip will be well-documented for your viewing pleasure. Wish us luck. We'll need it.
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