Seen it All

Gundo, Anne (baby Aissata), Mark, Fanta, Sori, Demba, Vieux, unknown village boy

We just finished a whirlwind tour of Mali with Andrew's parents. We first visited our village, where Andrew's parents had a blast meeting the villagers and going "local" for a while. Anne did all the traditional women's stuff, like carry a baby on her back, pound millet, and carry water on her head. She also ditched us all one night and went out dancing til midnight with the local women.

Mark and Anne eat breakfast at a popular PCV eatery in Bamako

Andrew in the Kayes marketplace

Andrew's parents talk to students at the school

Eating with their hands

Traditional clothing

After our village, we headed down to the chutes of Gouina, the giant waterfalls near Kayes, and spent a couple of hours playing in the water before attempting a disastrous "short cut" to Bafoulabe, site of hippos.

Guina Waterfalls

Despite the distance of only 45 km between Guina and Bafoulabe, it took us over 6 hours and we almost didn't make it. After almost breaking our 4 wheel drive land cruiser and pissing off the driver, and paying a bribe to the railroad chief in order to illegally drive over a railroad-only bridge, we made it in too late to actually see any hippos. We then continued on to Segou, site of the annual river festival, where I saw enough white people to make me think I was back in the states. We saw lots of cultural exhibitions, dances, concerts, and took a canoe ride on the river. Segou was our first new visit and it was a welcome change from the trash and hassle of Kayes and Bamako. We stayed with a family in Segou in their house, which was mostly very nice.

Festival on the Niger, Segou

On the way to Dogon country, we stopped at Djenne, a World Heritage Site and the largest mud mosque in the world. It was pretty neat to see, but it was HOT. Keep in mind, this is supposed to be "cold season" and our average temperature on this trip was about 95 degrees. The entire city of Djenne is built out of mud, which was really interesting to see.

HOT!

We then headed to Dogon country, picking up an amazing, eccentric Irish/Australian couple along the way, and hiked for two days on top of the cliffs, seeing traditional Dogon villages and ancient Tellem houses built right into the walls (think Mesa Verde cliff dwellings in the American Southwest). We had a lot of fun, but poor Anne got heatstroke and didn't make it past the first village. She spent the rest of the time hanging out at the campsite. The Dogon were initially animist, but have mostly converted to Islam, with a few to Christianity. It is interesting seeing the sacrificial altars and rooms for menstruating "unclean" women, but this is largely a thing of the past. The last animist spiritual leader (think Dalai Lama) died two years ago and they may not choose another one.

Dogon Cliffs

Nicole, Mark, and Hasimi, our guide

Santa Claus, the hunter...?!?

After Dogon, we went to Hombori to see some awesome rock formations: the Hand of Fatuma, and Anne and I were really sick. Some sort of intestinal parasite that kept us running back and forth to the bathroom for a couple of days. We were well enough to see the wild desert elephants in Gossi with fellow volunteers Jared, Bess, and Natalie. We went on a nice sunset boat ride across the lake. They also made us a delicious dinner of "wijila," which is a northern dish of giant dough balls dipped in a red, cinnamon, meat sauce.

Little children in Hombori

Hand of Fatuma, Hombori

Elephants in Gossi

Sunset canoe ride on Lake Gossi

The last part of our journey was to Timbuktu, Tombouctou in French, which in all honesty was a waste of time, except we can now say we've been to Timbuktu and we found a French copy of The Lord of the Rings in a used bookshop. Otherwise, there was nothing to see except old plaques indicating previous homes of "famous" explorers who also made it to Timbuktu (though not necessarily back). Timbuktu was very expensive, from the hotels to food to guides to entry fees. There were also tons of touts around trying to sell us crappy souvenirs at every second of the day. They were literally camped outside our hotel room door. We were all very, very happy to leave Timbuktu. But Andrew and his dad did get a fun (if overpriced) camel ride into the desert.

On the way back to Bamako, we stopped in Mopti to see why people stop in Mopti, and Andrew was pleased to have seen the market there, where they make canoes, sell dried fish and vegetables and HUGE slabs of salt (they weigh like 30 lbs). We bought a three pound brick of salt for $2. You may remember from a history class that they traded salt for gold. On this trip, we got to see both the salt and the gold, pretty cool. The salt mine is a 15 day camel ride north of Timbuktu out into the sahara, and the gold comes from our village (and others near us) in the west of Mali.

Timbuktu

Walking the streets of Timbuktu

Restaurant and turbans

Mark and Andrew's camel ride into the Sahara

So now we've officially seen Mali! I can truthfully say that Mali isn't really worth it as a vacation spot unless you're very hardy and have lots of money and patience. No one site alone is worth visiting Mali; combined the sites make for an interesting visit, but it's no reason to pay all that money to fly here unless, like Anne and Mark, your children are there begging for a visitor, or the history of West Africa deeply interests you.

In other news, my theater project in Kenieba was a success. Only five teams showed up but over 400 people pushed and shoved to come and watch the performances so the messages about HIV/AIDS and family planning and malaria were definitely heard. My team won second place, even though they were certainly the best group. The team of Kenieba, who didn't have a great skit, won first place. All the judges (not chosen by me)were from Kenieba. No one was surprised, but the other teams were outraged. It was a big let-down for my team, who worked so hard to prepare for the competition. But overall it was a success. Our school's team is planning on doing more theater pieces for the village, which is wonderful.

Rehearsal for village

Final Competition in Kenieba

Andrew's textbook project that he has been telling you about since Thanksgiving was finally not accepted (only took six months). The US government has decided that giving textbooks to students and teaching them how to fundraise is not a good idea. So in the absence of a supportive government, we look to supportive citizens. Now with no red tape, and the use of a honeymoon registry website, we can get
money straight from you.

Please visit http://www.honeyfund.com/wedding/dialafara to donate. Each item is summarized, but if you want more information, then please feel free to e-mail us. We can accept checks made out to "Andrew Wallace" and sent to our home address (2437 18th St. Santa Monica CA 90405), credit cards, and pay pal. Unfortunately, the donation will not be tax deductible, but Jesus will love you more, so that's nice.

Mali Xmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a great holiday. We had a lot of fun. We went to a fancy hotel in town and paid to swim in their pool. Yes, it's that hot here, even in December. Andrew spent most of the day making homemade mozzarella for our baked ziti dinner, which was awesome. For those of you who haven't already, check out Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It's all about her family trying to live of their land for an entire year. Pretty cool. She goes to a cheese-making class by Ricki Carroll, and so we bought a starter kit and the book and have been having a blast. So far we've made pizza and ricotta cheesecake. Yum!

Natalie and Andrew show off their mozarella

This Christmas was both better and worse than last year. It was worse because I missed home so much more, and it made me sad that my parents and grandmother didn't spend the holiday together like they did last year. It was better because of the company we kept here. We spent the holiday with the two new married couples in our area, Mark and Sam and Steve and Natalie. The dynamic between us three couples is pretty great. We all get along extremely well, which is heartening considering there has been a lot of tension lately between the Kayes region volunteers. Without going into too many details, let me just repeat what a non-PC couple (who live in Mali) said about us when they came to visit this week: "You guys should have your own TV show, like The Real World!" Oh, the drama.

Mark, Steve, and Luis in the hats I knit them

This week is also the Biennial Celebration of Mali, and it's being held right here in Kayes! It's a ten day long celebration with lots of music, dancing, and artisan fairs. Tuesday is the closing ceremony and there are rumors that the president of Mali will be there. There's also a rumor that if we ask, he will take a photo with us because he isn't allowed to say no to Peace Corps volunteers. So maybe I'll meet the president! At the very least, I'll get to see him from afar.

Bicentennial celebration

Dancers at celebration

Andrew's parents will be here in only three weeks, and we're both really excited but not quite ready for their visit. We've been trying to make our yard and house look as nice as possible, but there's so much to do! We need to have our well re-dug (it collapsed at the bottom), our straw hangar re-done (the wind has all but ripped it off), and our chicken area fenced off. Oh yeah, we need to buy some chickens, too! We just finished the construction of our chicken house, we're just lacking its inhabitants. We're tired of making do with goat and sheep meat and not having any eggs for breakfast, so we've taken matters into our own hands. We're a little worried about our cat's response to the chickens…

Chicken house

So what's happening in the real world? Send us a brief update and tell us about your life. New job, new apartment, new partner? Where is everybody??

Our West Africa Trip (NOT!)

OK, just kidding. We didn't actually go on vacation as planned. Both Andrew and I had too much work to do at our site that we couldn't justify taking off for an entire month. We'll go instead in April or May. So what have we been doing?

1. I'm working on a health-related theater competition to be held in the county capital in January. Each junior high is sending one group to compete for a prize of $200. This is a really big project and I don't have control over every aspect of it so I'm pretty nervous. But I finally got the funding that I requested so I can rent equipment the day of the competition. Now, if the community will just follow through on their part of the contribution…

2. I'm a teacher! I've been teaching "Economie Familiale" which is basically Home Economics. It's largely a health-related class, but it's a lot of fun. In my 9th grade we talked about the causes of diarrhea and how to prevent it, and we even made oral re-hydration solution together. The downside is that my 7th grade has 144 students, my 8th 81, and my 9th 60, so it's a really tough job keeping them in control by myself and trying to make sure everyone is keeping up with the class. It's made doubly hard by the fact that the 7th and 8th form don't speak great French, so often I'll think they understand but then when I read their exams and homework they can't even put a sentence ogether! Another problem is that there is only one book for every five students, which makes sharing very difficult. The students sit three to a table, so many tables don't get a book. It's really hard. They fight over the books and almost tear them apart. It's funny because the school teachers didn't want to pass out ANY school books, because a) there aren't usually enough b) the students destroy them, c) the students don't read them, or d) the teacher is still using his 1980 photocopied textbook that doesn't match the nice, brand new, expensive textbooks that could theoretically be passed out to every student. So we had to push and prod to get the teachers to hand out any books, because let's face it, what's the point of having textbooks if they sit in a cabinet and no one gets to use them?? Besides, the students DO read them. They love books and it's such a rare treat for them to have them.

3. Andrew is a teacher! The biology teacher got promoted and left town, and the admin people don't have anyone else to send to teach bio, so Andrew volunteered. He's doing a great job. He's been killing bugs, putting them in my jam jars and then pinning them to Styrofoam and showing them off in class. It makes for a really messy kitchen but I'm sure the kids are having fun (and so is he).

4. We're in Bamako now, the blessed capital of Mali, getting some work done on our applications for the teaching program in France, and spending ridiculous amounts of money. There's a real grocery store here so we're stocking up on supplies. We'll be making a feast for the new volunteers in our region for Thanksgiving. EDIT Nicole made a fabulous feast with chicken; green beans; mashed potatoes; stuffing; cranberry sauce; and butternut squash pie, yum. All while reading books 3 and 4 of the Twilight series. We had cheddar cheese, crackers, and sausage for lunch. All 12 of us volunteers almost died in bliss, not having eaten any of those things in a very long time.

Joshua, Mark, Sam, and Ashley eat Thanksgiving yummies

5. Andrew just made contact with a new NGO in town that works on improving French skills at the elementary level and so he is going to be spending a lot of time working with them as well.

6. Gardening season is upon us and Andrew is working with a Malian NGO to start up women's gardening instead of looking for gold. In 2003, the old PC volunteers built 3 cement wells to try to start gardening, but the women never built fences like they were supposed to, so cows ate all of their produce the first season and the wells have sat unused since then. Due to women's groups presidents' inability to let others use their otherwise unused land has proved too difficult, so a new plot of land has been selected and the women are hopefully fencing it off and having a well dug. Once that's done, Andrew will show them how to compost, start a seed nursery, space seedlings, etc.

7. Andrew has been working on a textbook project. He submitted it a couple months ago and the PC funding agent here is a bit of a lackwit. Anyway, it should be going online within a week or two. https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.donatenow
or www.peacecorps.gov > Donate Now > Donate to Volunteer Projects > search by country Mali > results appear below.

The project is for $375 so with so many people on our email list, that's less than $10 a person (the more the merrier). Each textbook costs about $8, and he's hoping to be able to buy about 60. I wish we could get more textbooks, but the community has to provide 25 percent and they can only afford so much. If you're interested in funding any of the other projects that appear, please do so. They're all our friends and need help. Even $5 can be a big help. Also, he's planning on doing a well project for a women's garden in January. If you wanna hold out for that, no problem.

Here are some interesting things that have happened to us recently:

1. A moth flew in my ear. Right INTO MY EAR! It was terrifying. It took Andrew about five minutes to get it out with tweezers.

2. On Andrew's birthday, we were walking through Bamako and a group of kids pulled my hair and threw rocks at me. When I yelled at them they scattered. It was really upsetting but I'm okay.

3. We carved butternut squash and gave out candy for Halloween. It wasn't the same as eating gross amounts of chocolate, wearing cool costumes, and watching scary movies, but it was fun.

Lamini

4. I have become Twilight obsessed. Honestly, I don't know why. I think the writing is pretty bad, the story is cliché, and I don't particularly like the main character. But I do love Jacob and Edward and that apparently is enough to keep me reading the first book (5 times in the past two months). I haven't read the last two books, but I did order them from Amazon and should receive them soon. That should tell you how obsessed I am; shipping alone was more expensive then the actual books. Andrew almost had a heart attack. Then, when I ordered the soundtrack, he actually did have a heart attack. Poor guy. I don't even like vampire stories!! Is the book laced with highly addictive crack cocaine? Someone explain it to me!

A couple of people have asked about Christmas presents. If you're so inclined, we'd love to receive the following:

-Donate for the project!
-Food, as always
-Seeds
-Books, mainly:

The Translator

Severance

Intercourse

Brideshead Revisited

Atonement

Beijing Coma

Dead Souls

The Gulag Archipelago

Papillon

At Swim-Two Birds

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

Letters to My Mother

The Unquiet Ghost: Russia Remembers Stalin

Bill Bryson (but not Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods,

or a Short History of Nearly Everything)

Indian religious books (not native americans) like upanishads, vedas, etc.

Attached are photos of our halloween fun; and the sweater I made for our language teacher. Check out more at
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v412/taurendur/.

I knit this sweater for Moussa

Tripping Out

Well, I'm back in Mali.

I had a great time in California. I saw lots of friends, and wish I could have seen more. I was so rushed, and a bit sick, but I managed to cram in a trip to LA, San Francisco, and San Diego. I think I travelled a total of 16,000 miles and over 100 hours on this trip. I still have another 100 miles and 6-12 hours to get to my village. The trip between Mali and Senegal is the worst trip I've ever had in my life. It takes 5 hours to cross the border (2 miles) because the Senegalaise have to check everyone's bags, then everyone's ID (but not at the same time or place, oh no, that would be efficient). If you're lucky enough to not get left behind, you have to then have the Malians check everyone's IDs and bags (again, not at same time or place). The border patrol is on a total power trip. They wouldn't accept my official Malian ID, nor my visa in my passport, so I had to give the agent $30 (which he pocketed) for him to stamp my passport with a visa. Luckily, I got back onto the bus before they pulled away. Not all passengers were so lucky. I yelled at the driver to get him to stop, or at least to unload their bags, but they didn't want to wait there all night. A couple others helped me out and we yelled enough and got them to stop and wait, then again, then again, then again, and finally the Cote d'Ivoirian and Nigerian got on the bus after going through the same shit I went through. The bus driver was so anxious to go because He had started the trip 4 hours late because they kept switching busses on us. The first bus hadn't made the trip in a month; the second was short about 10 seats, and the third ended up breaking down twice on the journey. I had such a nice seat on the first bus, no seat on the second, and a very cramped seat over the hot engine on the third.

But the US was nice. I ate well, although it doesn't look like I gained any weight, sorry for those trying to fatten me up. Here's what all of you need to appreciate about the US:

Millions of miles of paved roads

No bugs

Running water

Air Conditioning

Common Sense and efficiency are valued

Availability and choice of all foods

Entertainment options

Think on each of these and be thankful that you live in the best country on earth, God Bless America!

I got to give a little talk at my cousin's 3rd Grade classroom. They were really cute, had tons of questions, and will hopefully send some letters to my 9th graders (hopefully my 9th graders will be able to read their letters).

I managed to bring my microscope to Mali. Now maybe they'll believe me that germs really do exist.

I also managed to bring about $300 worth of food (mainly mixes and dried foods). That should keep us a month or so.

Vera, I meant to give you some African French music. I'll see if I can send it over e-mail next time. African French is much easier than French French. They trill their r's. They often speak with excitement, especially when saying 'par rapport' and 'raison pour lequel.'

EAP: it was so good seeing you guys! Do you have an e-mail address for Linnea? Nicole says her messages keep bouncing back.

To all the newly married/engaged couples, congratulations. Best wishes, we'll try and get to as many weddings as we can.

To all those who donated stuff (basketball, blow up globe, Baileys, etc.), thanks, I got it here safely!

Nicole likes my hair, woo hoo! I got it cut (no offense Nicole, but you're not the best with a pair of scissors) at Fantastic Sams.

Senegal looks a lot like Mali. Dakar, the capitol, looks a lot like Bamako, only slightly cleaner and taller buildings. Everyone speaks French and Wolof. It was annoying not being able to speak Bambara to the Africans, I'm so used to it.

People asked if it was weird getting readjusted to civilized life. The answer is yes. Other volunteers had no problems. At first, I couldn't speak to black people in English, I was too used to French or Bambara. I almost died of joy when I went to the supermarket. In Dakar, it was weird having a smooth ride in a taxi on a nice road.

I Saw a Hyena Today!

No, really! I've heard for the past year that there is a hyena in Kayes, my banking town, and I finally saw it for the first time today. Apparently some crazy people captured it and put it in a cage with a crocodile. The hyena is HUGE. I didn't know they could get that big (it's the size of a LION!). I felt really, really bad for it.

Speaking of trips to the U.S.... Sorry I never wrote an update about my trip. Mostly it was uneventful and it felt kind of weird so I never sat down and wrote anything about it. I did manage to spend some time with Anna and Daniel and Nicole, though not nearly as much time as I would have liked. I saw three movies, Indiana Jones, Wanted, and Wall-e, but I wish I could have found Prince Caspian playing somewhere. I did eat a lot of great food, such as sushi, Olive Garden, Subway, BLT's, and lots of ice cream. However, I was plagued by stomach problems the entire trip, so I didn't gain the weight I wanted to. Talk about bad timing. I ended up overdrawing our account while I was there and spending all of our money, so that was a definite downside to the trip. Poor Andrew had to be pretty frugal on his trip (even though it sounds like he really wasn't). Overall, I wish I could have held out and not made the trip home, or at least waited to go with Andrew for Grace and Aaron's wedding (CONGRATULATIONS!), because I missed him too much both while I was gone and even more while he was gone, and because our nest egg of $6,500 is gone at this point. Also, I missed the Dark Knight premiere by about a week, and never got to see Ironman either.

But even though we no longer have American money, we do have some Malian money and are taking a very long vacation in November. We're traveling to Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Cote d'Ivoire. We'll be gone about a month, and will have to find some way to hear/see the U.S. election and the new Harry Potter movie. Can't decide which I'm more excited about.

Andrew's parents are coming to visit in January, and I'm really excited for them. I just wish there was a better way to show you all what life here is like. It just blows my mind sometimes. Case in point: I have thought for a couple of months that my neighbor might be pregnant, but had no idea how to verify. It's considered rude to ask, and a woman will never give that information willingly. Finally I saw her at the maternity the other day for her pre-natal consultation, so then I knew for sure. A week later she had the baby!!! Malian women wear such baggy clothes anyway that it's hard to tell if they're pregnant. Crazy.

We have a lot of new volunteers here in the Kayes region, including two married couples. It's really nice having new people, especially other couples, even though they are both older than me. Speaking of marriage... Daniel and Nicole are engaged!!! yippee!!! Andrew and I should be back for the wedding in summer 2010. Andrew gets to be a joint best man (with Joey). Hopefully they will let me bake something or arrange flowers.

Andrew and I just celebrated our two year anniversary, and we watched our wedding video. I have to tell you, I have never been so happy in my entire life, even here in Mali. Andrew is the best guy in the world for me, and I am amazingly lucky to have found him so quickly, so early in my life. I like to think that Fate was making up for the first 13 years of my life by giving me Andrew. There is now a happiness overload in my life and I'm a little paranoid that maybe something bad is going kick me in the face sometime soon. Is it even legal for two people to be this happy with each other???

Enough mushy stuff. I've been getting a lot more work done. I'm currently working on this health-related theater competition between 13 schools in my area, and it's a big undertaking. Thankfully, it keeps me busy. School is about to start again, and I'll be teaching a weekly Life Skills class about how to say no to peer pressure, be assertive, etc. I'll also be helping out with the English class, maybe even teaching it, since the old teacher got positioned someplace else for getting a student pregnant. Some justice, huh? The guy gets a student pregnant, and gets to move far away where he doesn't have to deal with the shame or the financial burden of supporting a baby. These little extra-curricular excursions are pretty common here since the teachers are always placed in schools far from their homes and forced to leave their wives in their village because it's too expensive to re-locate them. Also, according to the teachers, the girls throw themselves at the teachers because they're smarter, better paid, and younger than the guys they're most likely to marry. I'm not sure I buy into that completely, and I still think the teachers should be fired and forced to support the kid or go to jail. That's technically the law here, but nothing happens unless the family of the girl presses the issue. Dumb.

It's currently Ramadan, so everyone is fasting. For some reason, this leads to better food in my village. There's a girl who's started a little cooking stand, and she makes meat kabobs and French fries and all sorts of good things. I taught her how to make onion rings so she can sell them to the village. That is my biggest contribution to Mali so far. High cholesterol. And who said this was a waste of time?? Actually they all loved the onion rings and I'm going to teach her how to make more things. If nothing else, it keeps me supplied with food. Talk about sustainability. I've also introduced the Dead Zone to my village, via the DVDs Anna let me borrow while I was in America. They love it, even without French subtitles. Unfortunately, thanks to that and 24 (which airs on Mali TV), everyone is convinced America is a lawless country where you get shot for just walking down the street. To Malians, this is inconceivable. They can't imagine that type of violence, which definitely says something positive about their culture. So don't anyone ever worry if I'm "safe." If I'm gonna die over here, it will be because of a traffic accident, make no mistake.

That's all for this month folks. I'll send emails from our trip through West Africa, which begins November 1st.

Lots of slobbery hyena kisses.

Andrew Eats Cake

Howdy partners!

I'm here in Tubani So again, our volunteer training ground, and I'm eating cake and on the internet. Life is good. I'm here to train the volunteers and their Malian counterparts how to do community assessment. Fun fun fun. The new batch of volunteers is in the process of being well trained, and they're just getting ready to leave the training grounds and go see their village for a week, before coming back for more training. It's insane the difference a year makes. Its absolutely unbelievable the change in language (to the detriment of my English, of course). I was able to comfortably train Malians and Volunteers speaking in English, French, and Bambara.

Nicole is safely returned, with few difficulties. She told me she'd be sending an update of her US trip, so I'll leave that to her.

I'm in the process of updating our e-mail list, so if you get multiples of these e-mails, know of others who want to receive these e-mails, or don't want to receive these e-mails anymore, let me know! It shall be done.

Work is crazy this time of year for an Environment volunteer. Helping women with shea butter, gardening, men with new sorghum varieties, selling local seeds bought in Kayes. The seeds you guys sent (thank you thank you thank you) are being grown in my garden and if they work, given to men and women whom I trust to grow and multiply. So far: lima beans. It's so hard to grow things here. We had one zucchini! Unfortunately, the bugs had 5, and this was planted 6 months ago. The zucchini was divine. We're okay on seeds for now.
Nicole returned with a bunch of herbs and odd stuff like kohlrabi. Beans, squash, melon, cucumber do great here. Nightshades like tomatoes, eggplant, peppers also doing okay. Can't seem to get broccoli, carrots, lettuce to grow. So far, we've harvested lima beans, tomatoes, 2 heads of lettuce, 1 zucchini, 2 beets, 4 carrots,
and 3 radishes. I thought once I got past the animals eating everything, the lack of water killing everything, I'd be okay. Nope. Now things are getting too much water, still more insects than you can shake a stick at, what I assume to be nematoads, and crappy soil. I've tried everything I can to protect one cantaloupe, pockmarked by caterpiller bites. I've raised it off the ground to protect against nematoads, covered it in a blue screen to protect it against larvae, but I think it's still not going to live.

One of our gigantic squashes!

Also, I've become a farmer!!! I farm peanuts and corn (and I have sorghum fields farmed by locals). My back is very tan, my hands callused, and my fingertips stained brown. I feel so manly. "Farm boy, fetch me that pail of water..." Now, when all of the Malians order me to come help them in their fields, I can gracefully decline
by saying, "Sorry, I've got my own fields. Yes, I really am farming. Yes, I really can farm. No, I'm not paying people to farm for me." Now all I have to do is sleep on my nose to squash it and my Malian transformation will be complete.

Book by Baba Wagué Diakité

Thank you Erika and Maggie and Glen and Leann and everyone else who sent/is sending books! My village probably has the most English books in all of Mali. We haven't counted (or started catalogueing), but I'd
guess between 200 and 300. Also, I found some kids books written by Baba Wague Diakite. They're in English, but about Malian stories, and his daughters' visits to Mali. I'd highly recommend buying one. It gives a perfect picture of what Mali is like. Buying _The Magic Gourd_ off of Amazon...$14.00. The way malian students' faces light up when they read in English a fable their grandfather told them ... priceless. That's the good news. The bad news is that Washington has not sent money to the American Embassy in Mali, and thus the Embassy has not sent money to our approved project. Theoretically, once they get the money, we get the money. Thankfully, the most essential part of a library (the books) is going good. All we need is a book case and we've got a veritable library. The funds will really help establish a computer room and a conference room that will provide light at night to study.

Old school to be turned into a library

I'm hoping to put up a project to get a garden well for a local village. The women are genuinely motivated, not just looking for handouts, so I feel okay starting the process, and the well is needed. I was sold when they decided to plant a live fence instead of the $1000 chain-link fence. My guess is that the garden well project will cost around $500, and I'm hoping that you guys can help me out with it. The women are required to furnish 25%. I know many of you have already sent packages and books, and I thank you for helping us out.
For everyone else, I'm hoping you can donate $5+ to help build a well. I'll let you know when it goes online. If you're really gung-ho about it and could respond saying you're definitely interested, that'd help me get an idea of how much we can spend (maybe a pump to help reduce pulling so many buckets of water, buying some fertilizer, garden tools, etc.)

Hmm, any cultural updates... Oh, I forgot to transfer my photos. I'll do that now and put some with this e-mail. Done. Check out more at http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v412/taurendur/

I saw a cow cut into 32 pieces (see photo). Other than that, can't think of any new cultural news. Oh yeah, the three villages: Baroumba, Diaguina, Netekoto have a custom/law that if there's a death in one village, all 3 villages stop all work (read farming. Cooking, laundry, dishes, and baby-sitting don't count as work). Solidarity or laziness, you decide.

Final news: I am coming to the US! I'll be arriving September 14th, assuming Delta hasn't cancelled my flight due to the "fuel crisis." I'll be in LA Sept. 14 to 17, Berkeley 18 to 22, LA 23 to 25. At least that's the plan. Looking at it, that isn't enough time anywhere, so this might change. I'm coming because GRACE AND AARON
ARE GETTING MARRIED!!! Ala ka den balo (may God give you children). Let me know if you'll be around, we'll do lunch. Also, Berkeley people, let me know if you've got room for me to crash on the floor at your place, hotels in Berkeley are ridiculous.

I'm taking orders for shea soap and shea butter if you want some, $0.50 per bar of soap, $2.00 for 200g of butter. (shipping and handling not included) Soaps come in Shea with honey/cucumber/neem/green mud/glycerine. All good for moisturizing skin, helping wounds heal, and helping out Malian women.