I may not be able to change the world but maybe I can change his…

One of my favorite Mother Teresa quotes “If only one little child is made happy with the love of Jesus,..will it not be worth…giving all for that?”

Peace Corps has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. The living conditions are tough and the emotional ups and downs are worse. There are days when I feel like I’ve made a real difference, days when I feel I’m on the brink of something great, and days when I want to put my head between my knees and cry because everything I previously thought was wrong. I’ll make progress only for things to regress. I’ll see change and then old habits reappear all in the blink of an eye. Sustainability is my worst enemy because it is my hardest goal. I’m working on it. I’m learning. Hopefully by the time I leave this place I’ll have made a lasting healthy impact on the people of Dioro. Time will tell.

The days when everything goes wrong and I feel like giving up I think of Fa. He is a seven year old boy who has stolen my heart. He can’t walk because of an over constricted thigh muscle. This little guy only has a few articles of clothing, very few toys, and isn’t allowed to attend school but NOTHING gets him down. He is always smiling and laughing and shares everything I give to him with whoever is around him. He comes from a big family with four kids at home and the four oldest kids in school.  Fa’s parents are spending a lot of money on school for the oldest children so they are backed into a corner and can barely afford meals every day yet alone send the other four kids to school.  I love this family very much and do all I can to help which, unfortunately, is not very much.  We cook lunches together and I brought back a ton of toys for the kids. I feel very lucky for the time I have with them and even luckier for the time I get with Fa. He’ll crawl up onto my back and I’ll secure him there with a Malian scarf and we’ll bike to my house where we can get some uninterrupted quality time together.  Last week we cooked Mac and cheese, thanks to my friend Ashley in WI, then watched one my childhood favorite movies “Land before Time.” He loved the food and really loved the movie except he held his little hands over his eyes when Sharp Tooth came on the computer screen. I forgot how scary that T-rex was..  We don’t get much time together but it’s always spent eating delicious food, watching cartoons, and laughing uncontrollably.  He reminds me that life is what you make of it. Be grateful for what you have and never forget to give away what you don't need.   

Changing the whole world may not be an option but if we can give and show love to the people around us and they do the same, I know we can make a difference even if it’s just one person at a time. I’m hoping to get Fa enrolled into a catch up program for school this next year and am looking into some handicap organizations to get his condition looked at by a specialist in Bamako.

                                   

Bono and elevating my Peace Corps experience.

The morning started out as a normal day in village. I got up around 6:30 to the sound of my family starting their morning chores and greeting each other.  I pulled my water, made my tea, and used the rest of the warm water for my bucket bath.  I knew there was an event in Dioro so I dressed in a full Malian outfit and carefully braided my hair. Little did I know I was getting ready to meet the creator of one of the biggest NGO’s in Mali, Jeffrey Sachs, and Bono from U2!!

The Millennium Villages Project is an NGO that has been working in Dioro for a long time now. They built a clinic for the community and train and pay community health workers to do Malaria testing and reporting.  My Malian counterpart, Samaila Coulibaly, is one of their best. He goes well above the 100 family a month requirement.  Together they have saved many lives by significantly reducing Malaria deaths in Dioro.

The percentages of deaths are down and the clinic is beautiful and functioning but there are still several flaws with PVM. Bad management, corruption, and the sustainability factor just to name a few. Pouring in lots of money and seeing positive results is great but what happens when they stop funding the program? Who is going to buy the rapid Malaria tests? How is the community going to pay for the medication?  The community health workers will no longer receive a pay check and will more than likely lose interest in volunteering because the “good guys” failed them. In Jeffrey Sachs' speech at the clinic he said that they were happy to be able to support them until 2015 and then their hearts will be with them.  Wait?! What?!

This is where I come in. I have one year left in Dioro and plan on doing what I can to bring some sort of sustainability to the program. One month ago I rolled out a training program “Keneya Ton Dioro” meaning Health in Dioro.  Samaila and I compiled 11 preventative health questions for the volunteers to ask when visiting compounds. The training was very successful and all 9 relais completed 20 surveys in one month. This gives me 180 surveys to collect data from. Treating sickness is great but preventing it is a lot cheaper and a lot more sustainable. If we can educate the community so that they understand why it’s important to sleep under mosquito nets and cover water we can also significantly reduce Malaria. The questions also spark great conversations about hygiene and preventing diarrhea, another big killer in Africa.  People need to be talking about washing their hands with soap, treating water before consumption, and exclusively breast feeding infants until they are at least 6 months old. Another part of the survey is asking about maternal health. Who in the compound is currently pregnant? Have they been to a prenatal consultation? If not, what’s prohibiting them? Do they have a birthing plan?  Educating women on these issues will also save many lives.

So that is all great but the big question now is, how do we retain free health workers?? I have no money to pay them a salary and if I got a grant it would only last for a fixed time. How can we take this project and make it lucrative? Sustainable? The best way from what I’ve seen since I've been here is to start an IGA, an income generating activity.  Teach a few of the relais how to make clothe and plastic diapers in an inexpensive way and sell to families as they are visiting compounds. Women spend a lot of money on their clothes here and take a lot of pride in their appearances. They carry babies on their backs and a lot of times are urinated and defecated on. A child not wearing pants while playing in the dirt can also cause bacterial infections so I’m seeing this project as a win win. The other IGA comes from a friend of mine working with Solar Energy.  A lot of families can’t afford a flat rate payment each month for electricity and have felt cheated in the past if their consumption was low for the month. This program allows them to buy energy credit as they need it just like they do with their cell phones. Amazing! With this project just rolling out they are finding they have a lot of extra energy. Sebastian had a great idea to buy freezers and sell ice for extra income for women’s groups. I’m going to use the freezer in Dioro Tinding for Keneya Ton Dioro. The relais can sell the ice and use the money collectively to pay themselves each month. Put all the money from each IGA into an account and split it 9 ways.  There are of course flaws in this system. What if some realis are selling more than others? What about the people taking time to make them? Will it be fair?  I’m working on all that. I hope that it will all fall into place as we go. First I just need to show them ways to make extra money and hope to God it motivates them to keep working hard and save more lives.

Thank you Jeffrey Sachs and Bono for the pick me up. It was very inspirational to have you here. Thank you Bono for saying I was your hero. I know it’s silly but I’m not taking that lightly. You set up a great program, now I hope to ELEVATE it by making it sustainable.  

You make me feel like I can fly
So high
El-Elevation

Swear-In

Swear in was a great way to finish three very tough months. It was held at the president of Mali’s house and we all got to dress up in beautiful Malian fabric.  I wore perfectly tailored blue basin dress. It felt great to dress up again. Here's a picture with all of us and ATT. It's the one Peace Corps used on their website to announce us as new volunteers. I have no idea what I was looking at... 

The night before we all got to go out downtown Bamako and celebrate.  We ate at a Chinese place that served shawarmas then went straight to the club. At the fist club our stage name was announced. My superlative was 'most likely to be mistaken as Jackie O' so when they said we were “The Kennedys” I was pretty excited. It was a crazy coincidence because they had given us our names before the superlatives were announced but in the speech they did call me and my friend Meredith out as being Jackie and Marilyn at the talent show.

 

The best part of swear in for me was knowing that the next day I was finally heading to site. I couldn't wait to get to my new house and get settled.  We had so much back and forth with training and I was ready to call one spot home. 

I can't believe this was 7 months ago!! I promise to do a better job updating my blog!! 

Site Visit

Site announcements were another nerve wrecking time. Finally after 6 weeks of training we were going to be told where we would call home for the next two years. There was a huge daunting map of Mali in the front of the training center and as our names were announced a post it was placed on our location. We had nothing to go on except that when we first got to the training center we had interviews with our Malian Peace Corps bosses asking us questions like would you like to live close to someone else, do you like to bike, and are amenities important to us? I really had no idea what I wanted so just said I’m an active, social person who wouldn't mind living close to another volunteer and that I wanted to by the water. My name was announced to be in the Segou region where a bunch of my friends were also going. I was ecstatic. When they announced my friend Miriam’s name to be Segoukaw as well I actually screamed a little. We took a group photo then I sat down and opened my pink folder. The name of my village is Dioro and I had a site mate Melissa. The other volunteer listed was Matt, he lived 15k away. Soon after I learned that Laura was really close as well. There were a total of four volunteers who all had Dioro as their market town. I was really excited to meet Melissa and was thrilled when Claudine, my Peace Corps Supervisor, gave me her number. My new site mate ended my nervousness by telling me my host family was awesome and that everyone in town couldn't wait to meet me.

Two days after our sites were announced our homologues came to Tubaniso. This was other unnerving moment. We broke up into regions and everyone chatted asking around to find who they belonged to. I was one of the last to meet my homologue. My homologues name is Samalia and I didn’t know it at the time but has turned out to be one of the best. He is the dugutigis grandson and will probably one day be the leader of Dioro. He is a very motivated man who really wants to help his community. I am really lucky to have a motivated village supervisor. We had a few days of training together then left for site. This was other stressful endeavor. The bus station was really crowded with people, stuff to buy, and garbage. My homologue was very nice and did everything he could to make us feel comfortable while we waited to get on the bus. I remember looking a cute little newborn baby and he asked if I wanted to hold it. I of course said yes and instantly became calm and happy as I watched this tiny little baby smile in his sleep. I knew I was going to be fine.

The bus ride to Dioro was uneventful except for the stops to get food. I was still learning the money but with Samalia’s help I got what I needed and we continues on. Once we hit Segou, Melissa, my sitemate joined us for the rest of the trip. It was easy to spot her at the bus stop and she was very welcoming and really sweet. I could tell we were going to get along just fine. When we got to Dioro Samalia helped me carry my bags to Melissa’s house. I stayed with her because they were still working on my house. We had a fun week together. She introduced me to all the important people in village and made sure I was never thirsty or hungry. 

St Patricks Day was during my site visit and one of the first things I asked Melissa was if we could celebrate with other volunteers. We had gotten everything accomplished in Dioro so it wasn't a big deal to make a pit stop on the way back to Segou. I had a great time meeting everyone and being American for one day. 

The week ended with an amazing Welcome to Segou party with all the other current Segoukaw volunteers. We went swimming, went on a boat ride, and ate a nice restaurant where I got delicious cordon blue and red wine. We then went to a bar with a live Malian band, drank a few more beers and danced ourselves to exhaustion.  

We headed back to Tubaniso on Saturday and all had two more weeks left of training before being sworn in. I didn’t want to go back. I was ready to start living in my new village and hated that I wouldn’t see the current volunteers again for another 15 days. I knew, though, I needed to finish my language classes and the time would come soon enough that I'd return to Dioro as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. 

Homestay

I was really nervous leading up to the days of homestay announcements. Everyone in my stage is really cool but I was hoping to be grouped with 7 other people that I had befriended in my first week in Mali. I was very happy when they announced my name to be with Michelle, my roommate in DC, Lauren, who I knew was as equally obsessed with cheese as me, Jasmine, a basketball player, Hannah, hilarious, Claire, my hut roomy, DeLissa, really sweet, and Andrew, my quite running partner. They told us we were all heading to Mountougoula but didn’t give us any of our family’s information so the worry hadn’t dissolved completely. I was also really annoyed because I was told I’d be studying Bambara instead of French.  The ride to homestay was our first exertion out of Tubaniso and was really intimidating. I got to see houses made of mud and straw, markets made of some fruits, veggies, and dried fish all covered in flies, and Malian roads made of dirt and a whole lot of trash. One of my first pictures…

  

  

As soon as we got to Mountougoula a bunch a kids grabbed our bags and we were shoved into a small mud built room with about 15 old men and one woman, who turned out to be my host sister. We were given to our new families and told our corresponding names. I was named Kanja Sacko. My father was one of the oldest guys in the room, Zumana Sacko, probably somewhere around 80. Our compound was small but nice and I was thrilled to meet my host brother who spoke a little English. There were tons of cute little kids in the compound but Tenen(Monday) was my favorite little girl. She had the toughest life in the compound; being the daughter of the unmarried house keeper meant she always ate last and was hardly ever clean. Her single mother worked all day everyday so she learned to hold her own at a very young age so much that even though she was the smallest child she controlled the group by smacking any boy with a stick if he was out of line. One of my favorite pics so far…

The day after moving into our new homes and meeting all the villagers we had our first full day of Bambara lessons. Homestay has been the most difficult part of Peace Corps and its all the local language’s fault. Eight full hours of training was overwhelmingly difficult and my day never ended there. I had to go back to my Bambara speaking family with an overloaded brain and try to communicate with my very limited vocabulary. My family served dinner around 7 every night and the food was really interesting. Breakfast was eggs and bread, lunch was rice and gross red fish sauce and dinner was usually macaroni and smashed tomatoes, barley any protein.  Even though I was completely exhausted I still managed to save an hour after dinner for games and dancing with the kids. Our compound didn’t have electricity so it was easy to turn in around 8:30. Here is a pic of some our nightly shenanigans…

   

Day to day life was really hard and really slow. We all had different mechanisms to make the time go by a little faster; cookies, running, soccer, and the neighboring town’s bar. Jerakarabugu was a half hour bike ride but worth the cold beer, grilled meat, and English time with friends. Sometimes we jump on a back of truck and headed to other neighboring town, B-Camp, where there was a restaurant and electricity. They also had an awesome toubab(white person) store with better cookies and ice cold diet coke. Doesn’t sound like a big deal but I was practically in tears after the DC discovery.

 

On the third week at homestay I came home to wonderful surprise….an adorable tiny little puppy!!! I named him Legend and we were instantly inseparable. Two reasons: One, he was the size of my hand and two, Malians aren’t really nice to dogs and there was no way I was going to let anything bad happen to the little guy. The first thing I did was give him a bath. I had no idea how big of a deal that was going to be and the villagers talked about it for days. That and the fact that I was walking him on a rope(leash), and took him to class with me. The villagers didn’t understand why I cared about him so much but you will…look down….

  

Homestay was not easy but I’m grateful for what I learned and the time I was able to spend with my host family <3

Swear-in at the Presidential Palace

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1762

Finally doing this...

I've been putting this off far too long. I have so much say but no idea where to start. So many incredible experiences already and I feel like whatever I write will not even come close to the constant state of sensory overload I've been in. I promise to do my best.

Tubaniso
We got into Bamako at 9pm. It was dark so I couldn't see anything just remember getting smooshed into a hot bus and getting dropped off outside of customs. I got my luggage and was immediatly shoved onto another hot crowded bus. This time they gave me a gift, mosquito repellant, awesome. We arrived at Tubaniso, the PC training center, pretty late. I tried to sleep but there was no way my mind was going to shut off. I listened to my good friend, Ashleigh Still, for comfort until the sun came up and I could really see what I had gotten myself into. My first adventure was the neigen and I missed terribly. I remember hoping that peeing in a hole in the ground would be easier on a full night of sleep. (Not true) I got ready and went to the main hanger for the first day of training. I met some good people in Washington DC so sat by a few new friends and did my best to stay awake for the 8 hour training day. I felt so weird and heavy. I wanted a break from everything and prep for a good night sleep so I decided to go for a run. It was hard but felt amazing. From that moment I was known as the running girl. I didn't mind. Much better than girl who can't piss in a hole or complete simple sentences..
I was surprised by how friendly our Malian trainers were. They all were dressed to the nines, and we're happy to answer any and all questions. I had a lot of fun getting to know everyone and was really excited to learn a few of my new friends would be joining me at homestay.

I need to run now but will be on again soon to tell you all about homestay in Mountougoula. Big news...My family gave me a puppy!!!