Corned Mutton Helper... Mm-mmm good.

It's Sunday so guess what that means... market day in Niena. Yes, Michele and I made it back to Blendio in one piece after our little adventure in Sikasso-ville trying to get a car ride out. It really should not have been so difficult other than the fact that we had 2 very large pieces of furniture with us. The plan was to leave Sikasso this past Saturday by bus, jump on the van transport in Niena and ride up to Blendio. But, as I'm sure is true with most of Africa, plans often fall through. We agreed to pay a car to take us straight to Blendio on Saturday for 25,000 CFA, but the morning we showed up the price was raised to 35,000 CFA. We declined and planned to stay until Tuesday when we heard there was a large truck leaving Sikasso for the Blendio market.
Well, the day before the large truck left, we went to talk with Trinh's homologue in order to figure out exactly where to catch said bus. He and Trinh agreed that the truck was too dangerous (we would have had to ride in the back on top of the truck with our stuff) and so he would arrange for a car (his driver's son) to drive us for the previously agreed 25,000 CFA. Ok, sounds like a plan. But then West-Africa strikes again. Apparently, sometime in the night between us talking with Trinh's homologue and the morning, someone called the driver to schedule him for another route the next morning. So, Michele and I waited several hours (thankfully right outside our favorite steak restaurant) for no car to show up. (There was a bit of a scare with the boy carrying our furniture as well, but due to Trinh's quick thinking yet another crisis was adverted.)
No car showed up. We were preparing ourselves to have to spend another 4 nights in Sikasso - our money had run out as our bank was all the way over in Niena - all the produce we had bought on Friday was begining to go bad, etc... As we were leaving the restaurant, however, Trinh's homologue shows up with another car borrowed from a friends company that just didn't happen to need it that day. Fate had smiled on Michele and I this instant - it looked as if we would finally get to leave Sikasso. We paid the driver 25,000 of out 27,000 CFA left, loaded up the furniture, and headed out. We both breathed a sigh of relief.
I doubt our driver had much experience as we found out early on. The road between Sikasso and Niena is littered with the worst potholes I have ever seen. A good deal of them are a foot deep and force most cars, buses, and trucks to driver certain stretches on the non-existant shoulder. But these potholes that strike at the nerves of other drivers didn't worry our man. He plowed right into the potholes at high speeds. It was a very bumpy ride. Somewhere in the distance, I swore I heard the all too common sinister laughter of Fate mocking us...
About a half hour from Niena, we didn't just hit the tiger-trap of a pothole, we rammed it straight on. Our right front tire exploded and a brief moment later we were pulled to the side of the road comparing the flatness of that tire with the flatness of the spare. It looks like this pit stop is going to last a considerable bit longer than normal.
I have to hand it to our driver though; he was resourceful. He stopped a child passing by on bicyle and strapped the tire to the back. They then rode to the nearest town about 2-3 kilometers away. (For being in the near middle of nowhere, there were a surprising number of children that came out of the tall grass on the sides of the road to stare at the two of us in the broken down car). About 2 hours later the driver returned on a motorcycle with the fixed tire. It was attached unceremoniously to the car and we continued on our way, lesson not learned as we continued to hit every pothole in the road at high speeds. We arrived in Blendio around 4:30PM (we placed bets on when we would get back to Blendio, Michele won by guessing 5PM, I lost with 8PM).

Not many exciting things have happened in Blendio or Kassoumbougou since then. One day we had a freak late-season hail storm. Yes, a hail storm in the middle of Sahel Africa. We thought at some point that our house was going to collapse until I looked outside and realized we were being pelted with tiny ice pebbles - its odd how the sound of hail on a tin roof sounds so much like wood cracking.
We've been eating a lot of tuna and corned mutton that we bought in Sikasso and making my new favorite West African drink - lemonade. You can buy tiny lemons here 3 for 5 CFA (roughly 3 per penny) and squeeze them into liquid deliciousness.

Oh, and yesterday we got the package that the Scarbrough family send. The food and candy are wonderful - we cooked the package of macraroni and cheese nearly immediately. And thank you so much for the birthday presents and the magazines; they are wonderful.

Mom/Dad, if you get this before you send your package, could you please include a car adapter for an iPod. We do not have electricity at our site, but we do have ways of recharging things that have the plug in for the car outlet. Best wishes to everyone back in the States, things here in Africa are great - a bit crazy at times but still great.

Is That A "Tubab" in Your Pocket...

Delayed in Sikasso until further notice...

...or at least until Tuesday, after the Fete du Ramadan this Sunday. Turns out that our planned ride to Blendio today was going to be way too expensive, so we forfeited our ride for the cheaper "grande voiture" leaving for Blendio on Tuesday. That means another 3 days in the land of "plenty of food"! Seriously, Michele and I eat so well whenever we come into Sikasso: the first night was steak, Mexican food the second night, third night was hamburgers (with fries and an egg inside the bun), and tonight is looking like it is going to be fried rice, egg rolls, and (drum roll, please) I bought a nice giant juicy pineapple today for only a keme (500 CFA = roughly one dollar).


So yeah, the reason I am on the internet today is this: Michele and I set up a post office box in Niena and we forgot to give everyone the address. The address we formerly posted is still good, but our stuff will be sent to the Peace Corps Bureau in Bamako (6 hours away). Our new address (which should be good for the 2 years here) is this:

Tim Maher or Michele Scarbrough, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 35
Niena, Mali
West Africa

Today is the infamous market day in Sikasso, so streets that once comfortably fit 2 car widths and a little extra room for pedestrians have been reduced to single file lines and lots of zigging and zagging between donkeys, children, and women balancing unlogical amounts of fragile item stacked high on their heads. (Seriously, I promise I am going to get a few photos of the women doing this, it really is a sight to see - just today I saw a young woman walking down the road with a watermelon atop her head - flat bottom baskets on a head are one thing, but a round watermelon! The women here regularly defy gravity!)

I think I am really starting to get used to life in Mali as weird as it seems to say that. I don't feel quite as "Tubab" as I did when I first got here. "Tubab" is the word that the children in the streets here yell out in chorus as you pass by them - it means "French" in Bambaran since people here assume you are French if you are a white person in West Africa; they also use the word to mean anyone who is not black - it is an odd querk of the language here, "farafina" literally means "black skinned" but is the word they use for "Africa". "Farajen" literally means "white skinned" but is the word they use for everywhere except Africa. According to the Bambaran language, there is Africa and then there is everywhere else - so Michele and I are called "Tubabs" by the children here.
Anyways, I was saying I don't feel quite as much like a Tubab here because I am comfortable navigating my way through the markets haggling for prices. I seem to impress a significant percentage of the people here by speaking with them in Bambaran instead of French; so many adults here get so excited when a foreigner will actually speak to them in their native tongue. I'll ask how much a kilo of beef is and when they say "un mille cinq cent" (1,500 CFA in French) I will reply "Ayi! A barika. keme fila ni bi-duuru" (1,250 CFA in Bambara) they are usually so impressed and caught off guard that they will give me a good price for it.

Riding in Cars with Goats....

This is our new crew, the Belushis of Sikasso! Our stage was named the Belushi stage of Mali, apparently because we are party animals. We were able to impress some longterm volunteers with our skills already - last night for dinner were ground beef, home-made tortillas, guacamole, lemonade, and cookies made from scratch: all things they didn't manage to make until after their first years here.

"I am Michele, not Tim's Wife..." Michele walking with our LCFs after our going away "party" in Sanankoroba. The mood of the "party" was very toned down due to the start of Ramadan that very morning.

These are the wood trucks that pass thru Sanankoroba nearly everyday. Some stop and just sorta sit there for a while.

This is a view at dusk off the roof of the hotel most everyone slept the night of swear-in. It was right about this time as the sky was turning grey in the smoggy sunset that the night air filled with hundreds of large brown bats coming out of their resting areas for their evening meal.

Us and the old Sanakoroba crew. Good times, we will miss them as we are now all spread throughout Mali. Only Trinh is near us in Sikasso-ville.

Michele and I on swear-in day and our nice outfits. Both were specially made for us by a tailor - my garb is called a "bubu" and is the formal-wear of Malian men - it beats the hell out of a tux or suit any day!

Sleeping Beauty Michele and Medea, our since missing kitten. She was a gift of the jatigi the day we arrived in Blendio because it was Michele's only request of the town. She has been missing for a few days now.

Michele coming home from the market - with all of her disciples.

Guess what?
Chicken butt! (no, seriously, it is a chicken butt) given to us (along with the rest of the chicken) by our jatigi, Amadou Diallo.

Our house - it is a bit of a mess, but then again it wouldn't be ours if it wasn't messy now and then.

Bus stop for the once a week transport out of Blendio.

Michele and my most recent trip to Sikasso, sitting atop a rather angry goat (who wouldn't be angry when tied up in the back of a van just below two stinky Tubobs). After our next stop Michele had to switch seats since our NASCAR wanna-be driver kept pissing off the goat zigging and zagging across the road at top speed to dodge all of the potholes (these are not American potholes - these things have had years to grow and become foot deep monsters).

It's all good

What a first two weeks! I have so much to say, and am kind of overwhelmed with the task of putting it all into words. First and foremost, all is well and life is still interesting, frustrating, insane, etc.

Secondly, I want to tell my Dad that I understand his letter now and everything's cool.

Ok... so as of recently I have been doing a lot of thinking. Mostly because we have had a lot of time to ourselves, trying to figure out how to live while being here. Throughout the past two weeks I have decided that the food problem is not the end of the world, and if I concentrate on it then everything is all about me. I have moved on. The food might suck; I may have lost 30-ish lbs, and we may have the same three things over and over every week-------- BUT we have food. We have money. We are not starving, or suffering. We are fine and well, and are probably spoiled/selfish americans used to cuisine like pizza rolls and hot pockets. (yes, I said cuisine) Anyway, if I really want to help these people I need to get my head out of my ass and realize that it is not about me. It is about living like them, getting by the way they do------ eating, surviving, sleeping, breathing Malian. With all of that in mind, I want to make some kind of difference here, small or fitini. AND I don't think that there is anything they can dish out that I can't handle.

So I went to my first big day on the job.... as of right now I will be working at the local CS-COM, which is a very small community health center. It has one doctor, two midwives, a nurse, a dude that gives vaccinations, and now---I guess, me and who the hell knows what my role will be. So my first big day on the job I was surrounded by vaginas, about 50 vaginas to be more precise. I was in the room with the midwives, and one-by-one the ladies would come in for their monthly 'check-ups', so naturally there were vaginas everywhere. So the first fun; big event was with this woman whose vagina was bothering her on the inside... musoya kono... so we took her into this room and took a look. Well, I decided the safest place to be was closest to the door, so I stood there looking at the cieling, waiting for the midwives to take the the pap-smear vagina-separator out of this poor woman... when all of the suddent they beckoned me over to them. I was still looking at the cieling when they asked me to look inside this woman at the plaiea (en francais, but i dont know how to spell it) or wound inside her. It was awful. I was already nervous and freaking out about the polio shot I watched the vaccinator jam into some woman's arm, but this----- oh my god. Then there were about 20 women who were in their 11th month of pregnancy, which is apparently normal here. The Women I saw that were 9 months along had flatter stomachs than me! not that i should necessarily be suprised by that, but it was still kind of shiocking that at 9mo they would be so small. It was sad. Then I saw two 16 year old girls come in.... they were pregnant and had just been married off... they were both smaller than gary gene... and one of them... her name is achaitu... her eyes were completely dead.
Since being here there has been this subconscious thing I do when speaking with the women here. I want to see if being a malian woman has killed their spirit, and usually you can see it in their eyes. I dont want to pretend i know what they are going through or that i really know if something in them is dead or gone, but when you see these eyes it just feels like they are already a banna. She brought her mother in with her, but wouldnt look at her. i dont know the whole story, but I am sure they were poor and getting their daughter married off was probably a really good thing for their family. I wish I could do primarily self-esteem work with women. >I really want to start a soccer team with the few girls they actually send to school, so they can feel the comradery of other girls their age and so they can have something of ther own that doesnt involve being subservient to someone or cleaning or cooking. Even the women here that are more educated and asseritve lose their confidence when in the company of men. It's as if they have separate personalities, because when they are with these men even their mannerisms and facial expressions change. They are different people. I wish i could start some kind of anything-you-can-do-i-can-do-better camp for women to help them maintain their voice with whatever company present, whatever situation arises.
Enough with the sad-africa bit. Random things taht have happened: I have experimented with the food they have available here and have figured out how to make alfredo sauce from powdered milk! taht may not ound like much, but wow seriously guys, i felt like a genius. Mostly b/c it was something new to eat. I have also made from scratch spaghetti sauce, chicken (hard to explain, but trust me i am allowed to say 'from scratch'), lime-onade, 'hamburger helper', dad's old favorite of eggs, noodles and cabbage (without the cabbage)... I must say that i owe all of my cooking expertise to dad... a little to mom... but mostly dad. Tim cant really cook yet., but he's getting there and eventually he will be there. So I do like 98% of the cooking. Oh my gosh MOM------- I made cookies the other night, and they were awesome! (i cant do this at my house bc we have no oven or anything like that, but we are in the city now so i did it and they were a huge success! ) I guess all the cooking you guys let me help with has really given me some great advantages here... so thanks!
Oh---- I wanted to address some of the concern over my health. Hakuna matata. When I write on here about all the fun parasites i am accruing, it's fine. I am not dead, I just some fun explosive diarrhea some times and its all good. Whatever i get, I still get up, go to work, study, read, whatever. nothing has been that bad, but i definitely appreciate all of the concern.
Hey Uncle Tim! I hope you keep a job open for me when i get back! Just thought i would throw that in there for good measure--- you know, in case you forgot.

here are some fun pics:





Here are my two good buddies after the pool party swearing-in party. I was drunk. It was awesome. I'm so sad you are gone Hilary!


This is Kyle/Fadibe and Amanda: both total badasses that had too much to drink at our swearing in party.


This is the other Michele with one L and I. We are cool.


These are the lovely people of the health sector. We are the health volunteers here and the woman in the middle is Claudine. She is from Cote d'ivoire, and is an awesome health leader! woo! claudine!


This is the tree behind our house in blendio... this old man is always sitting under it. he is such a nice and friendly man... he is always quizzing us on our bambara.

Big Day #1 --- Tomorrow

So - now that Michele and I are PCVs, we are eagerly looking to get started in the real life of the Peace Corps. Tomorrow is our big day. We are sitting in Sikasso ville right now buying the furniture, cooking utensils, etc that we believe we will need for the next two years and tomorrow morning Claudine (our chef du mission and Michele's APCD) will stop by the hotel to pick us and all our stuff up to take us to Blendio. After that life begins.

In all honesty, this whole thing is a bit daunting. Our language skills are decent, but not that great; I'm not so sure as to how to even get started at site. I will have a 7km bike ride a day to Kassoumbougou that will be fun, but I'm still not 100 percent about how I am supposed to interact with my homologue (my village partner). He is a well respected elder of the village who has had 2 previous volunteers, so things should only be new to me and not so much to him. So far in Mali, when I haven't had enough Bambara skills to communicate I switch to a Bambara/French combo, but no one in my village speaks French. I really feel like I am about to be thrown into the deep end to either sink or swim - which really isn't that bad since I always thrive in those kinds of situations. The first three months I'm really not supposed to do anything anyways - just work on language and start to get to know people in the village. It will be a good time to start to get a feel for the Malian way of life and how to really live on our own.

We arrived in Sikasso Sunday, and for the past few days have been hanging with a few of the PCVs here getting to know them and the area. Today, being my birthday, has so far been one of my more interesting birthdays. I've been yalayala-ing through the Sikasso market looking for an assortment of goods, getting into the same arguements with many of the people here about why Traore's are a ka nyi and why Diarra's be sho dun (eat beans). Tonight we (those of us left - me, my Michele, the other Michele, Trinh, and Brooke) plan on cooking a 'one last hurrah' American dinner before we all ship out tomorrow; cheesy noodles with ground beef, garlic bread, and guacamole.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly how I feel right now. I am nervous for tomorrow, yet extremely excited at the same time. This coming week wil probably be the most difficult, at least for me just trying to get my head around what needs to happen and what I will be doing for the next two years. - Oh, and it may be getting a little easier for Michele and I to get in touch with everyone back home (or easier for you all to get a hold of us); the PC gave us a cell phone! Thing is, it broke within us having it for a few hours - it didn't break until we left Tubaniso for Sikasso so that it is much more difficult to get the PC to fix it. This may take a few weeks. To all those who will want it:

Our phone number: 011 223 517 4791

The 011 is what you dial to get an international call while in the US, the 223 is the Mali country code and the 517 4791 is our personal cell phone. Like I said earlier, it doesn't quite work at the moment but in the next few weeks it should be up again and you all will finally have a direct line to us in case you ever want to talk.

Other than that, I don't have much to say at the moment. Life doesnt feel any different since swear-in since I havent had to actually do anything- but everything will change out in the brouce (bush) tomorrow. The fact that my birthday is today will make it much easier to keep track of how long I spend at site.


P.S. If anyone is interested, Michele and I have been looking into maybe coming back to the States next July or August. Also, if anyone wants to visit us, give us a few months to get the language down and then all are welcome.

We love you all and thank you for the birthday wishes. I will be eating good tonight (and I had steak yesterday - Sikasso steak is the best) so dont worry about us. We miss you all.