On the New Site: Diaramana (a rat-less post)

Michele and I have officially lived in Diaramana for two months now and have just returned to Tubani So (our PC training center in Bamako) for a quick week long training session with our Malian counterparts. So far, life in Diaramana has been significantly different than Blendio if not better in most ways. Here are a few reasons why:

In most every aspect, I would have to say that Diaramana is a good deal better - from the market to the work that we'll get to do, etc, etc. It makes me think that our Peace Corps Assignment is a bit like an extra credit report - those who don't necessarily need it are the ones who actually do it - our town is fairly better off than it seems most are. People here aren't exactly rich, but they can be considered better off that most of Mali. In a country where our almanac says 13 out of every 1000 people have a TV, when every one of our neighbors have television (and the car batteries and solar panels to run them - no 'real' electricity here) you tend to think you don't live in the 3rd world norm. Even our weekly market (actually an 'every 6 days' market) we have access to cabbage, carrots, lettuce, butter, potatoes - all the nice-ities of big village life here. Except eggs. Every house has dozens of chickens - and we know they lay eggs because there are chicks walking about as well - but no eggs for sale. People don't care for eggs here, I am never going to get it. We have to go 50km to the nearest 'city' Bla to get eggs which does not always have them for sale.
One point that Blendio actually seemed to do better was with the local boutikis or local shops and 'convenience stores'. The boutikis of Blendio stocked cooking oil, mayonaise, powdered milk... even cold drinks in a frig. Diaramana doesn't have the cold drinks (except the 10CFA bag of chilled water on market day). We bought a jifilen (clay cannery) in order to store water and to help keep it cool, but lately it hasn't gotten cold enough at night to chill the water much. Oh hot season, how you persist so...

And then there's the children. In Blendio, they were pestilential - always in a line around our concession staring at us from over the wall and by the gate asking for presents of candy, tomatos, money, etc. I don't know what it is, but the children of Diaramana, at least while we are at home, are much better behaved. Occasionally we do get the random children who stop and stare through the chain link fence, but before too long our neighbors are at their own walls yelling at the kids to get lost. -That's another good point about Diaramana, we have neighbors. In Blendio, all the adjacent homes faced away from us. They didn't even have windows on the walls that faced us. In Diaramana, not only do our two closest neighbors have concessions within a few feet of our yard, but they also have very low walls to where we can see each other and say 'hi' all the time. It makes us feel like more a part of the community, yelling across the yard every morning the daily greetings (that go on for a few good minutes: 'Hey, good morning, how are you? How's the family? How's your husband? How's your children? How's your little children? How's work going? Hot isn't it? How was your sleep? Do you have peace? May God grant you a good day....etc etc)

But yeah, back to the children - most do seem better behaved than normal - with the exception of the kids we meet on the way to the mayor's house for lunch every day (toh! oh boy!). Basically, we have to walk a long stretch of road (the gauntlet) in order to get to the mayor's. About a block away from the mayor's is a small low wall that we refer to as the guard wall. Most days there is a single child posted on top of this wall - the lookout. When he/she happens to spot Michele and I he sounds the alarm with "Tubabu! Tubabu!" About half a dozen of the neighborhood children hear the call and come running out of nowhere, reaching and groping to grab a hand or a limb or even a pant pocket so that they can hold the 'tubab' and escort us to the mayor's a few mere feet away. I don't mind too much but Michele (who doesn't even like hugging her friends because too much touching is involved) loathes this daily ritual. Dirty children with bright, excited faces acting as if this is the best day of their lives - all to touch and hold us, the town novelties. I have a feeling this ritual will soon come to a stop when we get back to Diaramana - in part because Michele and I have recently looked up the Bambaran words for 'don't touch me' but also in part because the most recent time was a shock to us.

As we were sneaking by the inattentive child posted on the guard wall, I noticed he was playing with a stick pretending it was his penis (as small boys do). He looked up and spotted us, sounding the alarm and running towards us at the same time. He reached out his hand to grab mine when I noticed something odd. The child wasn't playing was a stick, it was actually a syringe filled with a dirty muckish water with a needle two inches long. Before the kid could realize what I was doing, I grabbed it out of his hand before he could be stupid and 'show me his new toy'. Michele took the syringe from me and ran off towards the mayor's house to dispose of it while I held the kid's hand for a while trying to explain that his 'toy' was 'a ma nyi' and dangerous.

The worst part about this story is that this kid probably didn't just find a syringe on the ground. The local hospital is relatively good at disposing of all of its needles, as Michele and I have witnessed numerous times for 'child vaccination day'. The child was most likely given the needle by a parent who didn't know the dangers of a dirty needle - how is a kid supposed to do the right thing and stay safe when his parents are the very ones who encourage him by handing it over? It goes to show that even though our town may have a bit more money to spend than other towns, they still have a good ways to go.

At least our new site has a good level of excitement for what we want to do here. Diaramana already had a water/sanitation committee set up when I got there. Granted, no women are a part of the committee as of yet (something I must change if I'm to get the right kind of work done) but it is a start. The town is looking forward to wuluwulu (soak pit) construction and the nice thing is that they actually have the money where I can get them to pay for a significant portion of it rather than relying on outside money from an NGO. Teach me to fish is always better than give me a fish.