This letter was written September 11, 2007
Hello Family,
Bess is fine, happy, smiling lots, energetic, laughing, good and going strong… I was sick for a day… but immediately started taking Cipro and I am fully recovered… tonight we have a good dinner at the school with our language instructors, only a couple hours away… life is good…
It’s been a while since I’ve written… to anyone… about anything… and I have not written for my blog in a while… a little writer block I guess… I have thought about trying to chain smoke my way into insight and inspiration but I have decided against this technique… the tea here is strong enough… dead ends are dead ends… anyway… Home Stay has been coming to closure and thus language training will also be over soon (We will still have tutors at Site). In a couple days we will leave our Host Families permanently (except for visiting them in the future) and go back to Toubaniso for one last week of training, all the trainees who pass their language exams will “Swear In” on September 21st, and then we are off to Site (Gossi) for a solid three months – and then coming back to Toubaniso after three months at site for more training and the strategizing of our projects here in Mali. I may give a speech at “Swear In” but this is not certain yet.
Recently, Susmita, Natalie, Bess and I have been studying Tamashek very intensely, we are all determined to pass the language exam that determines whether or not we become Peace Corps Volunteers, and so we are highly motivated to study very hard. Our Tamashek teachers have been great… our classroom conditions have been fabulous compared to the conditions that all other trainees have in their more primitive villages… so this has all helped us a lot. I do believe we’ve learned more in Tamashek than some of the other trainees have learned in their “less difficult” languages… not that we need to compare… but I am making this assertion after taking the Big Test early today…
This afternoon I was in one of the villages outside Bamako, called Sala, with the other Agriculture trainees. We were learning about Seed Banks and Seed Storage. Susmita, Natalie and Bess were back in Kalabankoro practicing Tamashek with our Language instructors – very intensely I might add. Now there is only one Peace Corps Employee who is certified to give us the language test in Tamashek, and this person is not either of our language instructors because, well, Peace Corps wants an outside person to evaluate what we’ve learned from our instructors… and they are not certified… so anyway… there is only one guy certified to do this testing in Tamashek… and when I was in Sala early today… I met the man who is going to test our Tamashek class three days from now… and so… after greeting him in Tamashek… I asked him in Tamashek if he could give me the Big Test, yes, right then in that very moment and thus before returning to class in Kalabankoro… with a little persuasion… or none at all… he said “Yes”… and so we went and sat under a tree with a tape recorder, and we spoke Tamashek… and this was the test… speaking Tamashek… and so I believe I impressed him… because I was very conversational and confident in my approach, when I asked him if I had attained the level I needed to pass… he assured me that I was at least satisfactory… which I was… but just barely passing… anyway… I am very happy to have passed this exam… and I feel very good about all the hard work I’ve put into learning this Tamashek language… and I have no doubt that the rest of the girls will do the same… is has been fun to be part of a small group of people devoted to a mission of learning this language – we’ve excelled… thanks to each other, our host families, and our language instructors… The girls say that they are all jealous because I am no longer stressing the language exam… but really they are just so so happy for me… and Yes… it did feel good being confident enough to test early…
Bess and I have had two Home Stay experiences that stand out from the rest: one is the family dinner we cooked… and second is the spontaneously arranged marriage of our host brother Abdalla. He is now a 25 year old man married to a 13 year old girl… they really do things differently here…
Anything else… Oh Yeah… I prayed with the Host Family… Muslim Style…
Jared
This next letter was written September 19, 2007
Hello Again…
It is now September 19, 2007… and “Swear In” is only two days away… a lot has happened since I wrote the e-mail right above (sorry I never sent it out earlier, I just wanted to wait so I could conjoin it with this one)… anyway… the girls all pasted their language exam with flying colors… the best thing was how they all had fun preparing and taking the exam. The relief afterwards was probably the greatest reward… We all then relaxed and enjoyed Africa… Our language instructor, Abdalla, convinced me that there was another language test I had to take… a written one… so I continued to study hard with the girls until I discovered that there was no additional test… so I relaxed and enjoyed Africa when the girls did… Abdalla really is a magician… I think he is a Marabu of some sort (A Marabu is a type of person here in Mali recognized by his devotion to the Koran and being a guide in conflict resolution)… one night I was having marital issues… my issue was that Bess was not happy enough… and after apologizing for everything I’d ever did wrong… and I had tried everything in the present to make her happy… and I could not make Bess happy anymore… I left her to fall asleep and walked out on my own, and low and behold I bump into Abdalla, and Abdalla reads my problems on my face… and asks me so that I deliver the meat of the problem with my first sentence… and so then he (Abdalla) ponders a moment and then decides… “I should visit her…” and I replied…
“Now”
And he said, “Now the time is”.
So on this night… the night Jared could not make Bess happy – “anymore”. Abdalla came over to the hut, the hut of Bess and Jared, and there I was worrying that Bess might be asleep when we arrived, or perhaps too emotional to visit with anyone… and of course this worry was absolutely wrong… because she was actually feeling quite well… quite collected… feeling the satisfaction of finishing the old “brushing of the teeth” just before bed. And so… in heartbeat Bess and I joined up with Abdalla for a night walk – clear sky and thus star lit. And this is it… how they resolve problems in Mali, especially marital ones. People seek a third party they respect and trust. And so on this special night, the one where Abdalla was our third party, our Marabu, we got a taste of Malian therapy… I must say… for a single man, divorced from his young and arranged marriage, he is an excellent father… and I would even call him a Marabu, or at least mine and Bess’… It was amazing… to watch… before my very eyes… a man of unknown origin… working the magic of bringing more joy and more peace into our relationship as husband and wife…
Absolutely – Thank You
So it’s been tough finishing up language lessons with Abdalla and Elmehdi, toward the end we tried relaxing a little more with some movies… our language teachers had the DVD player and I had my entire collection of DVD’s over here… Elmehdi’s favorite movie was “New Jersey Drive” (youngsters steeling cars, drinking alcohol, and being rebels)… while Abdalla liked “The Man From Snowy River” (classic romance, one of the parents’ favorite, story of good boy working and wining over beautiful but spoiled/stubborn girl). It’s a good thing the man and woman end up together… or Abdalla may have cried – harder…
Elmedhi introduced me to a rap done in Tamashek – rap as in rapping or “spitting shit”. He taught me the chorus (Frrrim a nim a nan) and so we gave it a whirl. Natalie video taped the rapping event (See Video – Top Right of Web Page). The idea was for Elmedhi to rap the rap and I would dance along… look good… and join in with him on the chorus… and so the video takes a wild turn when I am asked to freestyle… and suddenly faced by the spontaneous usage of what little Tamashek to knew… so my Lyrics can be translated – literally - as “the pants are beautiful, the shirt is beautiful, the head is good, I go to the Cyber Café, I speak the Tamashek language beautifully, Fast Hips, Fast Hips – Laughter!!!”.
Once Elmedhi and I had established ourselves as “gangster rappers”, it was not long before we were living the gangster’s paradise… One day, it was Bess, Susmita, Natalie, Elmedhi and me living it up at a nice restaurant/bar/pool/hotel right on the edge of the Niger river… we were there for an afternoon meal, pool side, so we had the opportunity to be completely submerged in water – after two months of African heat and not having the experience. So there we were, for a glorious four hours… swimming, watching the Niger River flow, and eating delicious food… I bathed my French fries in Ketchup.
After we left the pool, Bess and I made dinner for our Host Family. Well… actually Bess made the dinner with the help of Susmita and Natalie… I contributed to the effort in other various ways… for insistence… I bought a 24 pack of these delicious Apple Soda drinks on our way home from the pool. The soda is made here in Mali… and they taste like sparkling cider but with a little less sparkier and a little more juiciness, absolutely delicious, so I though there would be plenty of this drink for everyone in the family – including me… but low and behold… word got around to the extended family that Nezzar and Iknet (Americans) were cooking dinner… so we arrived at home with more mouths to feed than expected… fortunately… there were enough Apple Sodas for everyone – only the girls and I didn’t get a single one – because there were suddenly 24 people in our home. I had also bought cheese spread coming back form the pool – like cream cheese – which I put on bread for an appetizer. I cut the bread and spread out the cheese with my knife. Now breaking bread has a better correspondence… and the family breaks, rips and tears their bread… always… and so low and behold… I thought I’d try to be “fancy” and cut the bread with a knife – and let them do the smaller tearing themselves. We enjoyed the dressed up bread. As Bess cooked… I brought out some Sage for the family… it was finely processed Sage I hand-worked from my best stash – a desert species I harvested outside Farmington New Mexico when visiting my Uncle Dan. The Sage is dry, potent, and I had only collected finest fluffiest grains for the batch I brought to Mali. I got the idea of burning Sage for my Host Family after one of my younger brothers came walking by, on this night Bess made family dinner, with the incense they usually burnt during stressful or happy times… I understood that they burnt incense to cleans the mind… so I though they just might appreciate me burning a little Sage… and they did… when I carried the burning, smoking, Sage around… the family members would get very serious… reach their hands out and into the Sage…let the smoke climb up their arms and then bring their faces up to it – Inhale It – and then bath in it… the older brother of Amano Ag Issa, Mohammed Ag Issa, made sure to cover all sides of his feet… but this was only after Amano Ag Issa spend some considerable amount of time smelling and investigating the fragrance, it didn’t take him long to approve and embrace the Sage. The family members then gave the Sage many beautiful and positive names in the Tamashek language…. and they kept asking me to repeat the name of it in English - Sage. One thing is for sure… this Toureg family recognized the quality in which Sage chases away evil spirits… so anyway… You may still be wondering if Bess was able to handle cooking for 24 Toureg mouths… If you are still wondering, allow me to add to this wonder by saying - not only had Bess never cooked for a family this large… 24 people… but she was working in a foreign environment with unfamiliar apparatus. Thanks to the help of the other girls… and her strong will and determination… Bess not only cooked for all 24 Toureg, but some random man came up off the street and found a spot around the bowl… eat his fill… and was satisfied… the leftovers were taken to a family down the street – all eat, enjoyed, and were filled. Bess’ tendency to make more than enough food really came in handy that night… the night Bess and I responded to the unexpected crowd of Touregs with some unexpected burning of Sage… and enough dinner for even the family down the street. AWWW… this just made Amano A Issa love us all the more… he said to Bess, “If there are only three people – cook for fifteen – because there are always more hungry mouths coming” – that’s the Philosophy of Amano Ag Issa.
The Food was good that night… Bess’ noodle and meat were more tasty than the fries and meat we had sitting, rapping, by the pool. Life is different when each meal consists of eating in a group of people around a single bowl.
.
Our last night at Home Stay was fabulous… we knew there was going to be a party… but once again Amano impressed us with the number of people that arrived… I think our goodbye party consisted of everyone we had met in Kalabankoro, and everyone we hadn’t met - including Amano’s older brother’s family from Timbuktu. Anyway… Amano’s Big Idea was to throw all of our American Stuff onto the bed… cover the floor with mats… set up some large speakers… and cramp as many people in the little cement cell Bess and I have been living in and would even hide in when feeling overwhelmed by the family… and then dance the night away… It was the best night ever… rocking out the old bedroom… I gave Akmad a working light saber I brought over from the U.S., it was my goodbye present for him, and he loved it… everyone loved it… everyone played with it. One of our Peace Corps Staff showed up to the party, and video taped the whole thing for Peace Corps, Natalie and Susmita were there, and all of their Host Families – and families’ families. I’ll try to get the footage sometime. Bess and I took some small video clips with her digital camera, so look in the video section of the Blog for this footage…
After Home Stay, we came back to Toubaniso and joined Force with all the other PCT’s. We are all 2 days away from “Swearing In” and going off to site in four days. I will be giving the Tamashek speak at the “Swear In” ceremony… I will be wearing the full Toureg “get-up” – Turban and all – just as Amano has prepared for me… hopefully this father of mine will be there to here delivered the thanks that our small Tamamshek group put together – to attempt – to thank them, all, for being a wonderful community.
P.S. I have recently learned that one of the most popular rock climbing spots in Mali is in “Hamburi” between Gossi and Duenza – this means about 2 hours from Gossi. The slack line is up at Toubaniso and the walking has already begun. Two people have learned to walk from one tree to another, maybe 12 feet away… many more have tried… my one friend Kevin got so good… so fast… that we’ve established a game together… meeting in the middle and shaking hands. 
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