Giving to the Peace Corps...

As we begin to celebrate the upcoming holiday season (a season of giving), here is a reminder to share with those who are far away and not always at the center of our thoughts.


This is a website where you can read up on various Peace Corps projects that are currently in need of funding. I'd recommend you scroll down to the country of Mali because I still have friends there, but the Peace Corps overall is a good organization. Any project from any country that you could choose to donate to will benefit people for years to come because the Peace Corps has a focus on sustainability at a local level.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/regioncontrib.cfm?region=africa&

Apartment pictures!

This is Michele and my new apartment in NW DC:

The kitchen isn't a separate room, it actually makes up the back of the living room (I love that).

And its a pretty sweet kitchen too. Granite counters, stained concrete floors...

We haven't hung anything on the walls yet, but we've got some awesome stuff from Africa to hang up, plus we plan on printing and framing some of our photos from Mali.

Our window out onto the world of Giant the supermarket with our dinky yet lovable Christmas tree.

Snow Pictures!

Yes, Michele in the snow is still Michele.

Laying in the snow with nothing but sweat pants and a sweatshirt - no gloves or anything someone should bring to a snowball fight.

Yep. To those in Africa: the snow is the white stuff in case you forgot.

And the wonderful thing about our apartment complex: all of this took place on the rooftop patio. Don't tell anyone, but we spent part of the time lobbing snowballs off the roof onto unsuspecting cars and pedestrians 6 floors below. Shh!

Snow Day DC

Ok, to start out with, I am a very bad person for not updating more frequently. I deserve your harsh words - especially those of you who might still read this living in Africa - that is, if any of you even bother anymore.
I continue to delay posting anything because I want to include pictures of everything and so far I've been very bad at carrying a camera with me. I've got some big events to inform everyone of and I am finally going to set aside some time to properly do it. Upcoming posts will include my sister's wedding that took place in November - then Michele's and my new apartment (with photos) since we finally cleaned up the boxes and arranged the furniture.


But the reason I got on today is this: it is snowing in Washington DC right now. True, yesterday was the first actual snow, but it was nothing more than maybe 20 flakes I saw between my apartment and the office. Today however is marked by the 2-3 inches on the ground and the little flurries I could see from the 9th floor of my office in the city. This morning my car had a nice blanket of white across the hood, roof and windshield.

I don't have a winter coat. Good thing it is warm in the metro. I spend 75% of my 25 minute commute everyday in the metro. I only have to walk a total of 3 blocks outdoors so life isn't that frigid yet. Who knows how I'll feel deeper into the winter as the temperature drops though. Odd thing is, even though it is 32 degrees or colder outside, Michele and I have not turned on the heat to our apartment - for some odd reason, it has remained 67 degrees inside our new home...


Interesting tidbit of the day: false-consensus effect:
a form of assimilation - the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share one's beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors - people tend to assume their own beliefs are more common than they may be. The most famous experiment of this involved asking college students to carry a sandwich board with the word 'REPENT' on it for a half hour around their campus. Those who agreed to carry the sign also believed 63.5% of their fellow experimentees would also agree to carry the sign. Those who refused believed that 76% of their fellow experimentees would also refuse.
This explains why madmen like Bill O'Reilly believe in their 'War on Christmas'...

An interesting experience from Mali translated into my perception of events elsewhere -- it really is amazing how just a brief time immersed in a foreign culture can alter one's own outlook.

Imaging you are giving a cutesy little wave to an infant or toddler, not a whole hand wave but a quick open and close of the fingers onto the palm over and over in rapid suscession. One waves to a child like this in America to be cute and to seem nice and not mean to him/her. Such is not the case in Mali as Michele and I were reminded over and over by our mistakes. That hand gesture in Mali translates to 'come here'. Adults, children, everyone uses it to signal everyone else. Far too often we would make a cutesy wave to a child as a soft form of 'hi' only to have the child shake his/her head quickly in fear because they didn't want to come too close to us.

Needless to say, it was a simple mistake we made that ended no worse other than some slight embarassment and a quick correction. I only wish the same was true everywhere.

Reports came out of Iraq last week that Unity Resources, a private security firm that hires UK, US, and Austraulian citizens to guard officials in Iraq, opened fire on two unarmed Iraqi women driving down a Bagdad road in a car, killing both. Though reports are conflicting, the concensus of eye witness accounts claim that the women were not doing anything suspicious but rather looked much more confused than threatening and began to panic.

Unity Resource guards' accounts claim that they did what they were supposed to: they signaled the women to stop and when the women did not the guards fired a flare at the windshield of the vehicle. When the car still did not come to a stop, the guards opened fire killing everyone inside.

When investigators asked for clarification as to how they communicated with the women to stop they explained that they used hand signals - they gave the women what we Americans would immediately assume to be the 'halt!' signal, the palm of the hand projected forward with all fingers together and straight up.

A lack of cultural awareness is the reason these women are dead. An extended palm is a signal of 'welcome' in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. The confusion of seeing armed guards shouting one thing, signaling the opposite is enough to scare anyone - and I'm not sure I've heard of a culture yet with people who could remain calm and not panic when a flare is fired at them.

Please tell me its not the fact that I've actually lived in several foreign places that makes me aware of how the simplest of things can make a world of difference. In a culture you are completely new to, simply knowing how to say 'hello', 'please', and 'thankyou' are all it takes to make a good impression or in just as many cases friends.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I've heard some say that men and women in the US military conducting house to house checks on the ground in Iraq did not receive any instruction in basic Arabic or on the cultural behaviors and gestures of Iraq. I pray to god this isn't true with the military because I fear it is true with the private security firms like Unity Resources and Blackwater.

One thing always comes to mind when I first hear the words private industry: the focus on profit above all else. I have no choice- I am just naturally suspicious of anyone who carries a gun around in a land where the law doesn't apply to them and are focused on profit more than anything else...

Enough about this. Today is Blog Action Day, a day where you are supposed to post something to help bring about additional awareness of the world around you.

For the love of man, please, go do something nice to someone you don't know today!

Oh, the Fond Memories of Mali...

This is dedicated to the little voice inside my computer that told me to get up off my ass and continue the blog. That little voice was Christopher Krey, the manchild pictured here at his finest.


The first step is the recognition of past events - the joys of Mali that Michele and I had to leave behind. The next step (and I am placing my camera in my everyday bag as I type) is to continue with the present. Michele and I now live in Washington DC which does not mean our outlook on life or our care to notice the world around has changed any - we are just in a different setting for our story now.

So without further ado, here are photos of some the many fond memories I have of Africa - both those who are of there and those who serve there.

ET

ET= early termination

Yes, ladies and gentlemen we have officially quit and are now in the U.S. I must admit thus far the whole experience seems pretty surreal... Anyway, there was only so much I could take in terms of being extremely unhealthy. Right before we left, in addition to the kidney stones, I also accrued malaria (again) and then giardia (intestinal parasite). So we were supposed to leave earlier, but the medical office decided it would not be best for me to leave with three different things going on--- not to mention the fact that I was on like 6-7 different meds, which ended up equaling about 15-20 pills per day. It felt like I was a 90 year old trying to hold onto life, when hello---- I am 24.

It took the two of us several months to reach the quitting-conclusion, but I definitely said that if I ever got 'very sick' again that I was going to quit--- and like magic one week later, exactly 2 days before we were supposed to go on vacation with some friends to Ghana, the kidney stones arrived. Let me just say.... kidney stones are probably the most painful thing I have ever encountered--- so basically hope it never happens to you. Funny thing is, the PC medical officers told me that Malian water was most likely the cause of the problem. (the water having many more minerals, and it being impossible to stay adequately hydrated here = malian kidney stones)

So where do we go from here? Who knows? I sure as hell don't. I have some vague 'plans', but nothing really deserving of being called a plan. Right now I am going to try to let me body get back to normal, eventually I'll get a job I suppose, maybe move to CA (lots of family there)... all I know right now is that quitting was the right decision. And as Tim said, sometimes it is more difficult to quit than it is to stay. I would say that I have to agree. It's not like all of my 'plans' thus far have actually been plans anyway. There is this quote in The Dark Tower book 7 (not that I read it, but I live vicariously through Tim sometimes) that says something to the effect of 'people who end up exactly where they thought they would be, end up shooting their faces off.' I never thought I would leave any university with three degrees (it's kind of obnoxious actually); I never thought I would be legally married at 22; I never thought I would actually live in Africa or join the Peace Corps; I never thought I would quit and end up where I am now (Byron, GA).... but I am okay with it all--- or rather I am happy with everything. C'est la vie.

No regrets.

Michele and I have left Africa.

Sometimes knowing when to bow out and say 'I don't think I should be doing this anymore' is the harder decision to make, but sad as our departure was, I believe it was the right decision.

Yesterday afternoon I stepped back onto American soil for the first time in over 10 months. As I emerged from the airport here in my hometown of Fort Walton Beach, I had been either on a plane or lounging in an airport for over 24 hours. It is done and both I and Michele are home again (each with our respective families for the moment - Michele in Georgia and I in Florida).

No regrets. At least no regrets for the things I have done. Mali was an adventure and it was fun. How many Americans will ever get to say that they lived in Africa for a year? Not many. Now that my experience is over, I have to say that each and every moment was worth it. The only aspects that I do regret were a few things I wish I had had time to do: mainly visit the mosque in Djenne (a big deal for an architecture nerd like myself) and travel up to Gao and Timbuktu to see the Sahara.

I'm not 100% sure of what comes next. I'll use this first month back as a transition period to get used to America and try to become healthy again. The margarita I have long been looking forward to will have to wait a bit longer. The medicine I am taking for my exposure to tuberculosis means I am not allowed alcohol for a long time. Maybe several months. Michele and I have to remain on malaria medication since we both might still have some malaria incubating in our systems for another month. And in two weeks we get to start taking the 'kill everything in your system' WMD of medication to wipe out the djiardia and other parasites we picked up while abroad. Oh, and I've still got that case of run-to-the-bathroom-once-an-hour diarhea that popped up on the flight between Paris and Atlanta (10 hours). But hey, no reason to get down about anything! I now live in a house with a toilet rather than the open hole outside that I'm so used to.

So from here on out I'll be posting about all of my best memories of Mali and the goings-on there and every once in a while put up some info about any potential future plans. Here's a fun list of some of my fondest moments:

7 - the number of chickens that I myself have prepared for cooking - slitting throats, plucking feathers, and disemboweling (watch out for those intestine, wow do they stink). I seriously progressed in my ability to prepare the chicken from that first nightmare episode (I let go of the chicken too soon after slitting its throat and it got up and ran around attempting somersaults, apparently not dead like I had thought). Granted, while my ability to put a chicken down peacefully improved greatly, my ability to catch the chicken was still a bit rusty at the end. I guess you could say my average for chasing and catching a chicken was somewhere around 10-15 minutes, sometimes even up to 20 min. And they all usually came to a point where I start to throw rocks and solicite the dog or neighboring 6 year olds for help.

Kidney Stones

I have two kidney stones. I think Allah wants me to go home. What do you think?

On the Eve of the Presidential Elections...

At first I was sad that Michele and I would be spending the weekend of the Malian Presidential elections in Bamako away from our village, but once we got into the capital a few days ago we saw that things would be nice here in the city.

Segou is one of the more prosperous regions in Mali and so is also a stronghold for the current president ATT (Amadou Toumani Toure). So, in our village of Diaramana in the region of Segou, we had seen a single face on all of the political posters - a smiling ATT in a light blue bubu and white hat. We took transport out of our village into the city of San and then the next day hopped on a bus towards Bamako - a trip of a few hundred kilometers - and possibly a thousand posters of ATT. People in our village don't even talk about any other candidates - they all only know of ATT and assume that he will win outright. At least that's what they tell us.

But once we got within 30 minutes of Bamako, the scenery out the bus window changed, not greatly but enough to take notice. The majority of posters still show the smiling visage of ATT, but now there are a significant number of posters showing other candidates, some of whom have followed ATT's lead and go by their initials as well, like IBK and SBM. There are even posters of a woman who is running for president - a big shock in this male dominant society. I never get a chance to watch the news so I can't be too accurate in any political predictions, but if the number of posters are any indication, IBK may be in the lead of the non-ATT crowd.

On our typical walk from the PC Bureau in Niarela to the Relax restaurant on the Koulikoro siraba, we passed a normally open, empty field that was uncharacteristically full of tents, people, large rams, and posters of ATT - it was a political rally of ATT supporters. As we dined on chicken and pizza at the Relax, a barrage of car horns broke the silence. I turned towards the road expecting to see a car accident or a more typical Bamako sight but was surprised to see hundreds of motorcylces honking and cheering with IBK posters hanging from the sides. Democracy is alive and well in the city of Bamako.

This whole thing provides a wonderful example of how lucky Michele and I are to be here in Mali. The people of this country are genuinely nice. Democracy isn't at its healthiest here, but it is still doing well. People we have talked with in the streets seem very excited about their chance to vote tomorrow and plan on doing it very early so they can hold parties the rest of the day. The Peace Corps decided to drop our 'Standfast' alert status in favor of normal status because the elections here are predicted to be peaceful and without trouble. That is something you cannot say about neighboring West African countries - Senegal and Burkina Faso PC will be on alert for their elections, Guinea had to be evacuated, Cote D'Ivoire is still in turmoil, Niger has had issues with its most recent elections and there was violence in Nigeria recently because of elections. All in all, Mali definitely seems to have its act together.

ATT is Mali's second president. The 1st stepped down after his 2-terms in office rather than create some laws to keep himself in power like many other African countries have done. ATT has served a 5-year term (presidents are allowed 2 terms in office here) and apparently is so well liked that he stands a very good chance of serving a 2nd.

This whole thing goes beyond Malian politics and into the very heart of the culture. I think I've written of joking cousins here before. Each last name has select other last names that they are allowed to poke fun at, most stemming from a rivalry in another part of Malian history. The Traore clan used to enslave the Diarra clan. Rather than continue age old animosity the way Arabs and Jews do in the Middle East, these two clans poke fun at one another - back and forth banter about who farts more often.

Even different relgions have a way of getting along. I read story after story in Newsweek after how some prominant Muslim or Christian leader is spouting off about how Christianity and Islam are so inherently different that they can never coexist beside one another. Simply put, this is bullshit and Mali is the reason why. In our village of Diaramana, there is a sizeable Christian population living amongst the Muslim population. The majority of the Christians live on the outskirts of town in their own communities, but some do live right in the middle surrounded by Muslim neighbors. There is no animosity between these groups, both spend all their time trying to survive the climate, not each other. The past few times I have gone to the nearby school to pump water for Michele and I, one of the Christian teachers had brought his pigs (1 large sow and 6 piglets) to the pump to roll around in the mud and get something to drink. Muslims do not eat pig because their scripture (as does the Christian Bible) states simply that pigs are dirty and should not be touched or eaten. The teacher told me that no one complains that he brings his 'filthy' pigs over to the pump to stand next to the source of water for a mostly Muslim population. People here have found a way to get along. The rest of the world would do itself good if it were to look to Mali for an example of a healthy culture.

Anyways, the elections are tomorrow, they seem to be a lot more exciting here in the city with its diversity of thought. Can't wait to see what becomes of this whole thing.

For more info check out CNN Africa

The fish bowl effect

When we started back in July of '06, many peace corps administrators would talk about the fish bowl effect and how to cope with it. Well, just to give you some idea of what exactly this is, here is a video of how we are treated everyday. We are but two white people in a village of over 12,000--- so needless to say we are fascinating.

My favorite poem.

I think i have actually posted this on here before, but I feel it is so amazing that it warrants a second go. Everytime I read it, it puts a smile on my face. I hope it does the same for you.

The Orange by Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave

They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.

I did all the jobs on my list

And enjoyed them and had some time over.

I love you. I'm glad I exist.

Fun with the Military

Neda, the super volunteer and Trinh Tranny.

Me and Tamara...

So the Military decided to throw us a party, and since we dont get to party often we made the most of it.

top pic: Amanda and I singing to each other

next pic: me and my togoma

last but not least: Amanda, Christy, and I...

Photos from the past month...

From the upper deck of the Hotel Iklass in Sikasso-ville, not too far from the Trinh-ster's house. We are going to miss getting to see our Sikasso kaw all the time...



The end of IST (in service training) with a party at the old Bamako Marine Corps house turned bar. The Marines sure do know how to throw a karaoke party - this is us getting down to the Water/Sanitation Sector anthem : 'The Final Countdown' by Europe. Or maybe this is our ovation-worthy rendition of Journey's 'Separate Ways' - either way our fellow corps-ers in the audience loved us.

Michele being Michele... with style

The old Sanankoroba kaw (sans Fadibe because we couldn't find him).

More of Michele being Michele...beautiful.

Officially a Government Worker

So Tim and I go to the second cycle school in our new village, and decide to chat with the English teacher there. It is the day before final exams, and the kids have something like field day in elementary school while the teachers sit around drinking tea and eating. The English teacher, Traore, asks Tim and I---- why are people in america always killing each other? Taken aback by this question, we let him continue... "I listen to the radio and I watch the tv everyday and America has so much crime and is killing people all over the world and each other. But why? Nobody kills in Mali or Europe. If I were to go to America, I would be afraid."

Crazy, right?

Tim and I, still in awe at the audacity of a claim like that sit and wonder where to begin-- Both of us feeling incredibly on the defensive. I start. It is very complicated, I say. It is very difficult to explain how America with such riches and seemingly happy people would have such high levels of crime. I think back to my criminology class and juvenile delinquincy with Rojek at UGA... I think about the UCR and about the victim crime report survey, and how yes--- levels of crime in the US are high. What the hell do I say to this guy? It would be unheard of for someone in a village to kill someone for money, Nike crosstrainers, or to rape---- it is ridiculously rare here. Ok, maybe not ridiculously, how about amazingly rare? They would sooner go without, and often do. I glance at Tim and realize he is thinking the same things.

I try to explain the large gap between the rich and the poor and how the middle class is shrinking and there was a recession, all excuses. I am trying to excuse the US's shortcomings on crime to a man who doesnt read about murders in the local paper, to a man whose life consists of such simplicity.... Not that I am complaining one way or another... it is just weird talking to someone with no real grasp of the claim he is making. I try to explain statistics, and how certain crime projections can be biased or based on spurious relationships. Then I realized that I was being an idiot, and resorted to the following:


America is great
American people are great
There are many things in america
American food is amazing
You should come to america; you would love it
The government helps you in America

And then i realzed.... I was then officially a government worker. A tool of propaganda.

Welcome to the Peace Corps.

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.

Community Together-ness and Rats

The new Bambara word of the week is 'toto', as in: Toto ka bon! (The rat is huge!)

Let me explain through story. Michele and I were in Sikasso sitting at Trinh's house having a discussion in the shade trying to stay cool in the 100+ degree weather. I had just bought ice cold Fantas at the nearby boutique and we were just at the point of starting to feel refreshed when we heard a bit of a commotion from the other side of the yard. Trinh's house is laid out thusly: Her house has a large walled in yard shared with another concession. A Malian family lives in this concession and work for the Peace Corps as the guardians of the property. Basically, Trinh lives alongside her neighbors so she doesn't have to live alone.)

Anyways, the commotion begins and we get up to see what's going on. Musa is yelling to Mymuna his wife to run to the other side of the wall to head off 'it'. Being the curious tubabs we are, we follow out the front gate and around the side of the wall in the street. Miriam (my 2nd wife) and some other children follow in hot pursuit getting excited from all the obvious hurrying. When we get around the wall opposite Musa, Mymuna stuffs the sack she is carrying into a head-sized hole at the bottom of the wall and backs up quickly as if to get away from whatever is trapped in the hole in the wall.

As we wait, Musa yells from the opposite side of the wall that he can't get to 'it' from there; someone has to get to it from our side, the outside. By now, because we are on the side opposite the late afternoon sun and there is abundant shade, this just happens to be where the entire neighborhood is out hanging and lounging before dinner. A young man in his late 20's comes running up to take charge. He pulls at the sack to remove it from the wall and begins throwing fist sized rocks into the opening. I run up close to hand him one after another as he slams them as hard as he can into the beast. I use the term 'beast' because as I was on the front line I saw it: a rat, easily the size of a cat or a 2 litre bottle of coke squirming in the hole trying to dodge the rocks. The length of my forearm minus its tail.

The rocks don't seem to phase it and we're running out at this point. It seems to know this and darts out of the hole. Leaping and bounding over feet and screaming men and children, the rat takes off down the street. One man jumps out and tries to kick it like a soccer ball (since it is roughly the same size) but misses and swings wide. 10 men, 25 children, and a dog chasing after the biggest monster rat I have ever laid eyes on. Eventually, after a few solid minutes of running back and forth someone is able to hit it with a tree branch and the men capture it. Several more minutes pass while the men debate: 'if we're going to cut its throat, someone has to hold the rat's head still.' They offered us the job and we promptly refused. So did many other African men. This thing was a beast with inch long fangs. Eventually, they put it down and the rat menace was over.

Diaramana kaw

Me and my kick ass homologue, Oumou. She is awesome.

Below: I am trying to explain to my homologue that I need a scarf like her green one in order to be able to dance like her. (It did not get me out of dancing for the next 3 hours)

Tiny feet.





This little girl is gorgeous.







Bogo is awesome. He and Tim are best friends.

Our First Stay at Diaramana

Michele and the Malian children enjoying themselves at the International Women's Day festivities.












A portable Malian gas station, it goes from bus to bus in the auto-gare filling them up. To save petrol, it runs off of hay and water.









Children watching the Women's day dancing, with the most noticeable tree in Mali, the Baobab. Legend has it, long ago the Devil, angry with the Baobab pulled them all up out of the ground and replanted them all upside down with the roots exposed. Most of these trees do look like the legend is true...










Our new house! 6 rooms, made of concrete with a large front yard and even a small grove of trees. We sit underneath our gwa (the grass/reed hangar to the left) every morning and greet all the people who come and walk by.






Sunrise in the hot season of the Sahel. Dust fills the atmosphere and covers up the sun- oddly, the season while the sun is blocked is the hottest season here.


































Our dog Bogo - named after the Bambaran word for 'dirt/mud' because he eats dirt. This is him chewing on a chicken foot. Being that he is owned by Americans, he's inherited our taste for food - he refuses to eat toh until he's gotten to the point where he realizes we're not giving him anything else. This is him smiling for the camera.