We were robbed.

hello from the wonderful world of mali. I am here to report that we were robbed while we were being held in the Peace Corps med office, when i had/still have bells palsy. They took a whole hell of a lot too. Here is a brief list:

1. my tennis shoes
2. my digital camera
3. my columbia rain jacket
4. Tims older digital camera
5. tims spare pair of glasses (the good ones with the transition lenses)
6. tims binoculars
7. all of our food after receiving both of the packages sent by my grandmother and aunt, and tims moms package.... needless to say they took all of the american food along with all of the food we had at home... thank you so much leslie and pam. your package could not have come at a better time.
8. a single pair of my underwear (they were lacey... so yeah it is disgusting)
9. half of a bag of pens i brought from the US
10. half of the pencils grandma and laury sent me


I think there are more things that were taken, but I cannot remember them right now. Anyway... after our long journey and my fun bout with bells palsy, I could not believe that this had happened. We are here to help these people and this is what we get for our efforts? I felt betrayed and disgusted, and honestly wanted to be anywhere but here. The worst part for me was when I realized that whomever broke into our house had been through my underwear. The whole white women-black man thing here is like the sexual holy grail. White women are considered to be more sexual, and easier than the local women so most of the time you are looked at as a primarily sexual object. This fact making my missing underwear more unsettling. In addition to the underwear issue, whomever broke in had to have sat down in our house and ate some things before leaving. My Mom sent me a can of corn and a can of mandarin oranges and they were opened and then throzn back in the food trunk... probably because they had never seen either in that form before. The same was true of a can of tuna, open and wasted along with a couple cans of corned mutton. I have never been so insanely pissed off. In addition to my anger, I have been going through what I believe to be panic attacks due to my fear that the theif might try to come in while we are home. There are many strange noises outside... and there is always something near our house; whether it is an animal or a person... i hear it, procede to freak out, my heart rate jumps through the roof and then i have problems calming back down. It has not been easy staying here. Tim and I, over the past few weeks, have fantasized about returning home... desk jobs not sounding as bad as once initially thought. We are staying here to see if things get better and if we can really make a difference here. Right now it is pretty difficult working up any kind of motivation when half the time I am wondering who amongst these people robbed tim and I. So theres that happy news. yay.

In more recent news, I have started my health survey. I created a health survey in bambara to ask the local women what their concerns are and to figure out what they know about. For example, if they have ever heard of AIDS or not. SAdly, after interviewing about 12 women, most have had a child die, 1 went to school, and 1 knew about aids. Those are just a few of the statistics. What I happen to think is worse however, was the behavior of my homologue during the interview. He was actually scoffing at the women who do not know the answers... he was making fun of them! It was infuriating! What made me even more frustrated is that he is educated; he has information he can share, but he doesnt. How in the hell are these women supposed to know about these things when they were forced into marriages when they were fifteen and have been having children ever since? I also had a couple of other questions with Bakary, my homologue/counterpart, that were equally irritating. I asked him if he liked to read... he said yes, but only named text books. I then asked him if he read to his child. He said no, that he was too young and has not been to school yet. They send their kids to school here when they are 7! 7! I also asked him if he spoke french at home. He said no, his child would learn that at school also. I told him that professors and academics have done studies that show that reading to your child makes them smarter and helps them enjoy reading when the are older. I also told him that tim and i were read to when we were children. He listened, and after my explanations and pleas he simply brushed it all off and said: well, we dont do it like that here. He said the same thing in reference to my asking if he spoke french at home to his child. I told him that he needed to speak to him in french because then it would be easier for him to understand the grammar in school and he would actually be able to speak it before being able to write it, which is more important here anyway. HE smiled, and that was the end of it. How in the hell am I supposed to convince the uneducated with my crazy theories if I cannot even persuade bakary to entertain the thought of change?

On another note,the school system here is ridiculous. They try to learn french for the first '-( years and then if they pass a national exam they can move on to learn science, math, history all taught in french... a language they barely understand. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!


Ok, I believe that is all I have to say right now. I love all of you. Thanks for everything in advance. Miss all of you. Everyone eat some turkey, ham, mash tatoes, etc for me.