Welcome to the Red Den

The End of a Long Long Jounrey

2009-08-20T01:05:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends....

If you recall the very first post on this Blog then you must know it is dedicated to Bess and Jared's Peace Corps experience in Mali, West Africa. It has been a tremendous two years and this blog has only succeeded in conveying a fraction of all our journey embodied... I am happy to say that Bess and I are once again living in the United States. We both miss our friends and family in Mali and intend to return as well as continuing ways to serve our neighbors abroad.

If you are just finding this Blog now... don't worry... it's not too late for you to enjoy what this blog has to offer... travel back through this Blog and enjoy it's amazing photography! Or, start at the beginning and travel chronologically through the blog to see and read about what two Peace Corps volunteers did during their two years abroad.

I also to encourage you to visit my new website full of Photography portfolios.

www.jaredphotography.com

Let The Good Times Roll

2009-01-22T03:10:00.046-05:00

Let The Good Times Roll

Hambori Sunrise

Hand of Fatma

Gossi Couple

Soulimon, Natalie's Brother

Bess Climbing Crux of "Traditional Marriage 5.10"

Bess on Sumit of Pamarie

Gossi Sun Rise

Jared Asleep

Jared in the Light

Jared in Meditation

Gossi Cows

Gossi Dude

Gossi Wedding

Toureg PDA (Very Rare!!!)

Hambori Moon Rise

Mohammed, teacher of Farmers Field School

Mohammed with Lettuce Nursery

Mohammed, Hamu Cisse (Chief of FFS), and Albana (FFS Worker)

At the FFS Site

Gardner Resting after a Days Work in the

Farmers Field School

(more pictures from the FFS coming!!!)

Bess and Jared at Peace Corps Gao Bureau on Christmas Eve

Woman at the Computer Place where local Gao Associations have learned to make Marketing Brochures for their Tourism Businesses

The Gossi Crew

Bess with our Gossi Family, Fatimatta & children - some of them

Family's Home

Bess, Zanabu, Natalie & Hadijatu

Gossi Trash

Boobacrine, Sidi, Bess cleaning up the Trash - dude watching in amazement!

Still Cleaning up the Trash

Still Cleaning

Still

Not Quite Sure What to Call This Guy?

Jared working up Pamarie

Working It!

Kevin on Pitch 2 of Traditional Marriage, with Brian from Colorado

Kevin on ORI (5.11) going up Suir Tondo, at the crux

Jared crossing Tyrollyen from Kaga Tondo to Pamarie

Atama, Kevin and Jared on Sumit of Suri Tondo

Brian repelling down Kaga Tondo

Kevin and Jared

Happy to Be Alive!

Gossi Girl collecting every last bit of Charcoal so none gets wasted

Touching the Moon

On the Up-swing

2008-11-11T13:15:00.037-05:00

On the Up-swing

The Man at the end of the line is Mike Simsik, Country Director of Peace Corps Mali, he stopped in Gossi on his way up to Gao for Business. Bess and I entertained him with a special lunch and when we went to Mayors office to greet the chiefs, the Trash Collection crew decided to honor Peace Corps by dressing up in uniform and Thanking him. No one had asked them to do this, they surprised us all and really made us feel like they appreciated our presence in Gossi.

This is the Result of Bess' Trash Collection Project. These workers drive around Gossi twice a week and collect trash to be dumped outside the town. Thanks everyone who helped Bess fund this project, you gave Gossi the tools and they enjoy doing the work!!!

The Chiefs of Gossi

Local Friend with Chewy

Gossi at the end of Ramadan

Traditional Tuareg Hair to celebrate the end of Ramadan

This is Jared after receiving the funding $$$ that June brought over from the United States... eventually there will be a Blog Post portraying the results of this project - A Farmer's Field School / Community Garden in Gossi.

Gossi Boat

Bess

Mother June Rock Climbing in Hambori

Kevin Setting up the Slackline at Sunrise

Jared Rocking the Booboo

Low Flying Yellow-billed Kite

Yellow-billed Kite

Bess and Mother June at Hand of Fatma

Local Hambori Boy with Newborn Goat

Pictures from Jared's Walk-About in Southeast Mali

2008-11-11T11:44:00.045-05:00

Pictures from Jared's Walk-About in Southeast Mali

Bamako Host Family (with Mother June)

Manantali Dam

Manantali Lake

Jeff in a Tree, birdwatching

Bearded Barbet

Hydrax

Vervet Monkey

Jared Tracking Baboons

Baboon

Kenieba

School in Kenieba

Kenieba

Kassama, village

Taba-koto, village

Bourama (Boabob tree)

Chief of Kollony (center) & Chief of Bourama (white)

Kollony, Bafing

Fill-Kata the Lengendary Bafing Hunter

Chimpanzee Nest in Bafing

Transport from Dialafara to Kayes

Dialafara

The Shoots in Kayes

Steve at the Shoots in Kayes

Bess' Narrative on her Gossi Trash Collection Project

2008-09-17T07:33:00.003-04:00

Bess' Narrative on her Gossi Trash Collection Project

(see Pictures Below)

Thanks to all of the support from friends and family back home, the Gossi Trash Collection Project is now officially up and running! After the project received full funding in July, we began purchasing the tools. Group Imidiwan now owns two motorcycles, two carts, ten shovels and rakes, full uniforms including gloves, boots and breathing masks and 50 trash barrels that have been distributed to families in the four quarters of Gossi.
Three days ago, I got dressed in my finest Malian outfit, put on earrings and a necklace and headed to the Mayor’s Office for an official ceremony acknowledging Group Imidiwan as a legitimate service/business of Gossi supported by the governance of Gossi. Jared took pictures of Group Imidiwan in their uniforms, as well as the officials of Gossi who gave inspirational and encouraging speeches. It was a great ceremony and I felt really proud of all Group Imidiwan’s work, and thankful for the support of the Mayor and Chiefs of Gossi.
The same day as the ceremony, we invited the Group and some of the town officials to dine at our house for lunch. Our mom cooked a delicious lunch of couscous for everyone. We sat around for a good part of the afternoon chatting and drinking tea until most of the group fell asleep. Before sleep overtook everyone Jared demonstrated his full belly popping technique when one has had too much to eat, which they all cracked up over. Because the group is all men, and I’m a woman ( and women are second rate citizens here), it really helps that they all love Jared and think he’s the greatest white man to walk the earth.
The best “Peace Corps” moment concerning the trash collection service was when our new Country Director, Mike, came to visit Gossi a few weeks ago. It was his first time visiting the Gao region and he asked to stop in Gossi for lunch. Our mom, again, prepared a delicious lunch of doughy bread with sauce (Weegalla) and afterward we took Mike to the mayor’s office to meet some of the people we work with. I invited the chief of Group Imidiwan to come to the mayor’s office to meet Mike. We arrived at the office, met the people, but no Group Imidiwan. We were about to leave when who comes around the corner, but the entire group! All 14 of them! In their full uniforms! I hadn’t even yet seen them in their uniforms, so to see them all show up and present themselves to Mike, with a formal thank you, made me really happy (I actually got a little choked up). Mike also really enjoyed this and got his picture taken with the group.
The process has not been without its challenges to be sure. From being asked to launder project money to the “big men” in Gossi, to being reprimanded by the mayor, I’ve certainly learned a lot about politics, cultural taboo’s and the not so straightforward communication of Malian’s. But overall I feel confident that the project will succeed and that the people of Gossi will learn the importance of keeping their streets clean and free of trash. I’m also thankful that we are here for another year, to help Group Imidiwan during their first year providing service.
Group Imidiwan has said that they are most excited about cleaning up Gossi, making it a model town as far as trash collection is concerned and someday welcoming the American Ambassador to see their work. J
None of this would have been possible, had it not been for everyone’s support which we are so thankful for. We will keep you updated on the progress of the project with photos and blog updates.

Trash Collection Project Pictures

2008-09-17T04:55:00.028-04:00

Pictures of Gossi Trash Collection Project

Gossi Sunset

Hadijitu and Mother

Group Elmidiwan (Your Friends) digging trash depot

Good Worker in Group Elmidiwan

Also Good Members of Group Elmidiwan

They have humor too

They work hard...

They like a good Photograph (Group Elmidiwan)

Sunset in Gossi

Bess pounding Millet with Tekiminet

Bess and Hadijitu

Natalie, Zeinabu and Bess walking to Trash Collection Project Ceremony

Trash Collection Project Ceremony at Mayors Office

Chief Rissa Making an Important Point

Photo from roof of our mud home

Curious Tuareg at Trash Collection Project Ceremony

Group Elmidiwan and the Equipment the Project Money provided for Collecting Trash

Going Out to Collect the Trash

Sunset

After Ceremony Party at Bess' and my Shade Hanger

Local Family excited to have Trash Collected

Sunset

A Short Narrative on Hardship & Poverty

2008-08-19T15:42:00.000-04:00

Near the beginning of my Peace Corps service, in a Blog Post entitled “A Day at Home Stay”, I expressed a little bit about the difficulty of being a volunteer and the hardship I was experiencing just trying to survive everyday activities. The truth is… life in Mali has only gotten easier for me; sure it is not ideal spending this much time away from family and friends, and indeed the overall “way of life” here in Mali is less luxurious as in the United States – and YES it is extremely difficult at times. For example… in a recent bus ride to Hambori my large backpacking bag (full of climbing gear & food) was placed in the bus’ lower compartment with a dozen goats (little did I know). Arriving in Hambori I was dropped off along the side of the road with my bag sopping wet, it had slid to back of the lower compartment along with all the urine of a dozen goats, drenched in goat urine it was, so there was really no better choice for me than to put on my wet bag (refrain from drinking from my Camelpak) and hike to where I was meeting my climbing buddies. The Malian boy who gave me my bag from the bus’ lower compartment thought nothing of my misfortune nor did he give me an explanation. Apology – I don’t think so - not for soaking my bag in urine. My Peace Corps climbing buddies, Kevin and Eric, enjoyed a good laugh when I explained to them why my bag, and by this time my entire upper body, was soaked in goat urine (have you ever smelled goat urine? Not Good!). But as the reality of life in Mali will have it… both Kevin and Eric have a dozen stories similar in outrageous and unfortunate tragedies such as this (unfortunate in an American mindset – not a Malian!), at the time when my goat urine and unfortunate tragedy tale was fresh, Kevin and Eric were even too exhausted themselves to give it all the humor it deserved… they had descended their own bus earlier that morning at 2am in the middle of a Sand/Monsoon Rain storm and were still recovering. The point here… is that life in Mali continues to be extremely difficult…not for me alone… but for all of us Peace Corps volunteers… just when it seems like the bar of unfortunate tragedy could not be raised any higher… it comes down altogether and clonks the us upon the face just as tours chins begin to elevate. But… but, but, but… just as the body can adapt to the temperature change of climbing into a hot hot bath… and as a person’s ears can adaptive to the background noise of hissing insects… or the smell of a smelly porter potty… so do we Peace Corps volunteers adapt to the hardships of life abroad. Has life in Mali gotten easier – No. Has it changed – Not a Chance. So why do I say that “The truth is… life in Mali has only gotten easier for me”. Well, I guess I don’t really know why I would say this… perhaps I have simply gone crazy and have started saying things of random nonsense… and/or… perhaps after begin beaten so many times… by my metaphorical “bar”… a certain numbness has developed… like when people are sentenced to jail… through time… their life in jail simply becomes… life… So… It is amazing… I guess… to see the poverty of Mali as, not just life, but as my everyday life… For me Now… after the young energetic, idealistic, excited and hopeful Peace Corps volunteer that arrived here… has well… integrated… and somehow died… it has… for me at least… become less a matter of condemning the poverty I see as wrong… seeing it as an unfortunate tragedy… or even believing that it is my living purpose and mission to make it all disappear… instantly!!! No no no no… after raising that bar and having it fall on my face a few thousand times… I have found it better to simply leave it on the ground. Poverty, yes, it is real… and it is living… even evolving…it can be described as lack of resources, technology or lack of education… it is a lack of many describable and namable things… but accepting it… for what it is… (the lives and worlds of many many people) …living amongst it… in it… requires something of the mind that does not try to name it, describe it, nor condemn it as an unfortunate tragedy… and miraculously… miraculously… when this happens… for me at least… I find myself living not in accordance to everything I learned through an expensive American education… but neglecting my own intelligence… and living according to the Way(s) of a people who’s education extends no further then what it requires for them to propagate in the only Way(s) of life they know… a life you and I might call impoverished…

More Picture From Jared's Peace Corps Gallery

2008-08-19T15:20:00.019-04:00

More Pictures From Jared's Peace corps Gallery

The two girls living next door, on either side of Bess and I

Gossi Garden, under a Mango Tree

Gossi Lake, leave for a paddel

How Gossi locals get around

Gossi Lake

Gossi, getting ready to grow rice

Gossi Boy

Bess' and my New Shade Hanger

Kevin at Belay Station in Hambori

Eric Climbing up to Kevin

Eric & Kevin at Belay

Jared walking the slackline atop a Finger of Fatma

Dead Scorpian found in Gossi home

Eric, Jared and Kevin atop a Finger of Fatma

Shepherd boy who watchs us climb and brings us milk everynight in Hambori

Eric Topping Out the Lead of the Century

A Few Good Pics from Gossi, Hambori and Gao

2008-07-28T12:08:00.021-04:00

A Few Good Pics from Gossi, Hambori and Gao

How was this shot taken ???

Hambori

The Horse Man & Bess

The Horse Man in Streets of Gao

Entering a dance circle at a Wedding

Horse Dance at Wedding

Photo Shoot for Brochure Project

Bess' free Horse Ride with Horse Man

Horse man showing off the horse's footwork

Teens in the Gossi Lake

Children Spying under our Door

Hambori Sandstorm coming in

Hambori Sandstorm about to Hit!

Gossi Sandstorm about to hit

Gossi Sandstorm at 2pm

Gossi Sandstorm at 3pm

Niger River between Gao and Housse-Foulauna

Hambori after a Sandstorm

Petrol

Gossi

Bess in our concession with our children

Bess on a bike ride through Gao

Bee-eater

Jared Photographing himself in his Solar Panel

Bess and Jared belaying Peace Corps Friend Dave's

brother in Hambori on his brother's visit to Mali.

We Really Miss Everyone Back Home...

Hope you are doing well, living in good health, and finding Peace daily!!!

How to View all Jared's Videos

2008-02-02T04:36:00.000-05:00

Go to www.youtube.com on the Internet... Search reddenalden and you will get a list of all my videos... the video series entitled Mali Slideshow 1,2,3,4 are Music Videos I made with the best of my pictures... enjoy...

Big Wedding in Gossi

2008-02-02T04:10:00.000-05:00

Wedding of Mosa (Mayor of Gossi) to 3rd Wife

Sounds of Gossi (Bess Post)

2008-02-02T04:08:00.000-05:00

Sounds of Gossi

by Bess

Most people in Gossi live in mud houses or bogu’s (straw huts). But everyone really lives outside. Life takes place outside. There are walls to divide families’ concessions but it doesn’t really separate anyone from their neighbors. Because life takes place outside and people really only go into their houses to sleep during the cold season, the ebb and flow of life lifts above the entire community in a chorus that one can tune into at any time.

As I lay down to sleep at night (Jared and I still sleep outside) I can hear a community getting ready to rest after a day of hard work. The gently hum of voices, dogs barking as they form into their wild packs, cows mooing as they find their way home from the gardens where they’ve been all day. It’s quiet late at night though when the sky is so big and the stars so bright. It’s like peoples’ voices and actions are hushed by the incredible stars and the deep blackness.

Sometimes the roosters get a little confused and start cock-a-doodle-doo-ing at 3 or 4 in the morning. Of course when one starts, the others inevitably join in. The roosters alert the cows who alert the goats and sheep and pretty soon the animal kingdom of Gossi is singing welcome to the sun that won’t actually come up for another 3 hours. Often when the animals make this mistake they realize it and quiet down again. Most often though, they are right on time and when the sun shines it’s first rays of the day the animals’ chorus is replaced with clinking pots, children’s cries and voices and adult voices.

This is about when I get up. I guess then I begin to make sounds too, that contribute to the chorus of Gossi. One of my favorite sounds happens during the day, usually late afternoon. The children gather outside our house on the street everyday to play soccer. They talk and laugh and play. The sound of their happy, young voices and laughter is a blessing everyday. Often I go out to watch and hold a really little one. All these sounds correspond to the life happening all around our village. I’ve wanted to share what life is like in Gossi, but there’s just so much! I started with this. Often we rely on our eyes to tell us what is going on around us. Try it sometime, to learn the sounds of your life and the life around you. It’s a beautiful song.

Few Pictures

2008-02-02T03:56:00.000-05:00

Gifts and Given

2008-02-02T03:52:00.000-05:00

Gifts and Giving

Perhaps the greatest opportunity given to Peace Corps volunteers… is the chance to awaken to the reality of how blessed one really is to have grown up strong and educated in a country screaming with wealth, freedom and prosperity… Imagine how many people in the United States will in one day complain about: not having enough of something, losing something tangible in which they were attached, or not being able to do something they wished they could do… but… woe… if they only could be given a broader perspective… of the reality in which most human beings inhabiting this plant live… daily… and throughout their entire lives on earth… freedom… yes and no… within and without… all people are free to accept and enjoy the life given them… but why so many people with so much wealth should struggle so immensely to find even the simplest enjoyments in even the most basic things… seems silly right… perhaps then it seems more silly that those with so little have smiles stretching across their faces… much of the time… like the smiles of people you may find on this blog… and for what reason… they live in a stick house… they have no car… no health insurance… no dental… they do the same simple task day in and day out without even a chance for promotion… perhaps they live life fully… perhaps they live freely… simply… because they can dive into each and every enjoyment of each passing moment knowing that they have nothing to loose… Jesus said “It is harder for the rich man to enter into heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle”… not so far removed from another thing Jesus said… “If you the wealthy wish to enter into heaven… give up all your possessions and follow me” – O.K. maybe these aren’t direct quotes from Jesus… I don’t personally want to claim to know the guy… but we can imagine Jesus saying something on these lines… so what about me and us… the rich and wealthy from the United States of America… I want to be happy too… yet I am rich… having wealth especially in opportunity beyond belief… and having seen the people of Gossi with so little natural “things”… and being bombarded by children, teenagers, adults, and elders, begging me… screaming out to me… to give them new clothes… give them a radio… buy a new battery for their cell phone… give them something to eat drink, or even smoke… or give them money - sometimes equivalent to a U.S. nickel… and all the while the beggar’s needs are asking me so much more natural wealth than I actually have to give… or am willing to give up… What?.. then… How is happiness to come my way… anyone interested in my spiritual journey… a journey not so unlike the spiritual path of others… Here is my reflection on Gifts and Giving… Today as a Peace Corps Vehicle was leaving the house in Gao… my heart opened up for a Malian man named Mosa… whom I noticed performing his work for Peace Corps with great excellence… Mosa had worn a brilliant smile throughout the past three days I observed his work… as a Peace Corps Vehicle Driver… as a Songri Man growing up in Timbuktu… he spoke a little Tamashek on about the same level as myself… through our communication… I knew that he was familiar with the Touareg customs and traditions… so after watching him load my newly purchased supplies on top of the Peace Corps vehicle: a wheelbarrow, two large bags of cement, a wooden mortar and pistol, and a box full of care-packag stuff from the United States… I began asking Mosa about his family in the home he was about to return… after dropping off the Peace Corps PCMO and her husband… upon hearing a little about Mosa’s lovely wife and five children I immediately wanted to follow some traditional Touareg custom and send a gift back with Mosa for his wife and children… the Touareg have names describing different types of gifts… this particular gift would be considered a “Tibadar”… so I ran inside and returned with six Ginger Hard Candies… which were gifts sent to me by a friend in the United States named Anna Woofenden. I wanted to give Mosa seven candies so he could have one himself, but only six were given… and upon giving… when I spoke the word “Tibadar” a Tamashek man working a donkey cart who had just dropped off some supplies for another PC volunteer… was just outside the door and saw me giving gifts and immediately approached and demanded his “Tibadar”… Yes this man I had never seen before… did this… Mosa tried explaining to the random Tamashek donkey cart man the specialty of the gift I was giving him but he couldn’t find the words in Tamashek… so I jumped in… explaining that Mosa was a friend… had worked very hard for me the past three days… lifting heavy things… and these little candies, of mine and my wife’s, were “Tibadar” for his family back in Bamako. But regardless of this specialty… the random Tamashek man demanded that he be given a gift too… Mosa then explained that there was just enough candy for his wife and children to each have one of their own… but this didn’t matter to the Tamashek man… like a wild shock to my system… Mosa then gave with laughter a piece of candy to man asking… with persuasion… so we all laughed at the ridiculousness of the efforts to keep the gift from being given… to him… so after this my heart opened up and I spoke the traditional Touareg blessings to the Tamashek man as he mounted his donkey cart and left – candy in hand. In Mali… everything is shared by the family… they do not have the same idea of individual possession of objects… “things”… in the same way that people in United States have objects… “things” aren’t really his or hers in Mali, sometimes, especially those adapting Western ways… but… really the “things” are things to be shared by friends and family… and they are in Gossi… when you make a pot of tea… you must have someone available to offer it too before having a cup for yourself… if no one is present… you take a cup of tea to someone next door… in the Touareg society… if you are seen with a nice new object, like new clothes, or a new motorcycle, or a new tool, friends and family will say… “Beautiful thing now give me money” and they really will expect you to give them money… because if you can afford to buy something new for yourself… then you ought to have enough money to give them something as well… and this really is the way they do it here… especially family… and perhaps this contributes to why most people in Gossi stay poor and happy… you see… people don’t work very hard throughout most of Mali… they do, but… many are not motivated to work all day everyday just to acquire money and objects… they work to supply themselves with the bare necessities, and when they don’t need to work, they definitely don’t… so I’ve observed… they sit and visit… play games… tell jokes… make fun of how ridiculous people are for certain ways of acting… and make tea for each other… many of the Nomadic Touareg people I’ve met don’t envy Westerners and having money… they find interest in the gadgets we have… they enjoy learning a gadget’s purpose and function… but usually they always end up smiling & laughing at its invention… as if it was a silly idea in the first place… sometimes they are really impressed… like my camelpack… an invention similar to their water sacks made of animal skin… but perfected with practicality… and even after appreciating the simplicity… most Touareg will walk away… back into the desert completely content with their nomadic lifestyle and the animals they depend on… some of these Touareg do treasure possessions… like cell phones… and they do enjoy seeing what’s on T.V., from time to time… but usually not with attachment… only a humorous curiosity… they don’t seem to be envious of those who own one… even though they don’t… if they want to watch T.V. they simply go to a person’s house who owns one… are welcomed by the household… and they watch… if no one owns a T.V.… and there is no T.V. to be watched… no one really cares because no one has something, possesses something, that everyone else does not… another words… the community sharing that goes on… keeps everyone from being envious… and even keeps them from wanting to attain something that has not been attained… like having a T.V…. so what about me… I am living in this community too… and thus I am expected to follow the social norms… right… sharing everything with my friends, family, and neighbors… but yet in all reality I am not completely integrated into their community, nor am I truly accepted as a member of their society, I am more seen as an alien pretending to be something I am not really… and the imagination in this pretending is important for me and the community because without it… why should I be accepted at all… or why be there… I am not one of them: linguistically, blood-related, even ethnically and religiously… truthfully… I do not fully understand their motives, reasons, and especially all the particular aspects that drive their society…. And yet… despite our imagination… and to complicate matters more… within just a couple months living in the Gossi community… I have acquired a larger house, a bigger more beautiful wardrobe (measured in how they value fabric), and more primitive as well as technological possessions then even some of the more wealthy members of society have in their household… for example… the woman I see everyday at the water pump has two… maybe three… sets of clothes… I have acquired more than this since arriving in Mali… Yes… people enter the mud house of Bess and I… and are shocked in disbelieve, mesmerized by all the possessions… “things”… as if they were conjugated out of thin air… so what to do??? How can I be a happy… being seen as a rich man… living amongst poverty in their perspective… and yet deprived of the luxuries I am accustomed to in the United States… and to make the struggle more difficult… I am constantly being asked for more than I could actually give… if I always gave when asked… O.K. I will tell you… the answer I have found to this riddle… I am going to live the impossible… possessing and conserving my “things” without any attachment… amongst the objects existing in my house… which… being the tools they are with a given purpose – a use… exploring only potential use. If I share in the traditional manor… they will be destroyed before understood and fulfilling purpose… the “things” that is… thus I must master what back home I learned as practicing Charity while exercising Discrimination… what does this mean… Charity with Discrimination… it means using good judgment… rational thinking… to conserve, share… and make use of my possessions so that they may serve the greatest potential with the best possible outcome… giving when needed, using when appropriate, and conserving when necessary… for me this means teaching those people who have a willingness and patience to learn the complications of a more sophisticated technology… and in the end… giving the beneficiaries of the “things” to those who actually need them… because like Jesus taught… heaven doesn’t come with the natural wealth and possession of “things”… which is why the people of Gossi were happy before I arrived, before “things” arrived centuries ago… simple because… everywhere life exists… things occur organically… thus… on my part… it would only be a shame for me to make them envious of the “things” they do not have… although I do not want the people of Gossi to exploit the “things” I have brought into their world… at the same time… gripping my “things” too tightly will make me covet the “things” I have brought, and in this way… making me loose connection to the community… and inevitably becoming miserable… So with a heart opening instead of closing… nothing will bring me more joy than seeing these useless and yet useful “things” bring about a practical means of useful service while teaching lessons that are invaluable to sustaining what is a Blissful Life. The other morning Bess and I woke up on our mattress outside in the concession of our home in Gossi only to find a man named Abraheem standing over our bed. Abraheem is somewhere in his late 60’s and still works manual labor all day for six days a week… Abraheem works for a man named Albana (My Gossi Host Father) and does whatever Albana instructs him to do, whereby Albana works for a man named Hamu Cisse and does whatever Hamu Cisse instructs him to do… and as far as the life of Abraheem goes… there is only one repetitive task that he does… anyway… the same task he has been doing since he was a teenager… Abraheem is one of the wood choppers in Gossi… he has an ax like thing called a “tootela” and each day he is told what to chop… and so he chops… and this is what he does to support is two wives and dozen children… Abraheem is at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Gossi… because he is poor and has two men above him… working labor… but I admire Abraheem more than anyone else in Gossi because he is the only person I know in Gossi who works hard, all day almost everyday, and he never complains, he never has a bad attitude… in fact… he is very positive most of the time and even keeps important the traditional Touareg greetings and blessings… Abraheem is one of the few adults in Gossi who has embraced me with equality, and has given me the much needed patience needed when learning a new and difficult language… Abraheem wears a Turban that is ripped, well worn, and faded with many years working under the hot Sub-Saharan Sun. Abraheem has arm muscles comparable to young guys in their twenties or thirties who work out every day in the U.S…. guys who pay money… drive distances… only to lift metal objects… (probably U.S. guys go to gyms to meet females and show off their bodies)… Abraheem’s arms look like that of a 25 year old… but the rest of him looks like 60 or even 70 in years under the sun… If a blind man were to shake the hands of Abraheem… the sensation would be that of shaking the hands of knight wearing armored gloves… his hands are thickly callused from his labor… my host father Albana once asked Abraheem to chop down a dead tree on the other side of the wall outside the home of Bess and I… I thought it sad that the old man be prompted to do this work and figured that I should help… to my amazement… the old man chopped and worked the strong dense tree wood with about 80 percent more efficiency then my effort… when a gigantic throne went through his bare feet… Bess screamed… but Abraheem didn’t flinch… he pulled it out like he was removing a fly and kept hauling the thorny branches away… I couldn’t understand what he was made of… or what had even made Abraheem… so on this morning… when Bess and I woke up with Abraheem peering down on us… we were not afraid in the least… only embarrassed to be caught still in bed under our covers at 8:30am… in Gossi… everyone rises with the sun (except maybe a few teenagers)… especially people like Abraheem… and usually at this time Bess would be on a run and I would be doing my morning readings… but because the cold season is surprisingly cold… and Bess and I had argued about pointless nonsense late into the night… we were still in bed under the covers… why Abraheem showed up… I still don’t know… haven’t asked… never will… he has never come so early in the morning before… but there he was… he told us in Tamashek, “People should rise with the sun each day, wake up and say Thank You God!!! Thank You God!!! (God is called Alla ((Arabic)) or Minsinarr ((Tamashek)) for Abraheem) and that it is not beautiful to wake up so late. I responded saying that he was right… and I felt very embarrassed… but happy that he had showed up and delivered his very important message… like an angel sent by the Lord… only Abraheem… so later that day when I was walking through the Gossi market with some fabulous brand new pink Touareg cloth I had purchased as a gift for a very special friend back home in the States… a friend who has given me priceless gifts… in which I would attempt to acknowledge with the fabric… so anyway… heading through the Gossi market with the cloth I had already turned away three people asking me for money, because they noticed my new cloth, when suddenly I bumped into Abraheem… whereby he asked me to buy him a new Turban because he also saw my new fabric… usually I don’t like to give to people when they demand to be given to… Like the random Tamashek man and the Ginger Hard Candies that were meant to be “Tibidar” but coming to know a little bit about the Touareg ways… there in the Gossi Market with Abraheem, randomly, on the day of his morning visit, I let my heart open more… in response to his… I felt the joy of giving… not wanting to buy something for Abraheem right after turning three other people down… I told Abraheem to tell me what color Turban he wanted and how many meters he wanted… he said “Light brown and 5 meters”… so I told him the next time I returned from Gao I will bring him exactly this gift as a “Tibidar”… he smiled, laughed, and said O.K., when I returned he would appear, but I still wonder if he really knows that I am actually doing it… because I bought it yesterday… and will return with it tomorrow… regardless… I know it will be a good gift… an act of Charity made with Discrimination… and knowing Abraheem… he deserves it because he is a real Touareg soldier… I am not… he owns one Turban worn to endangerment by his hard work… I have already acquired four turbans in Mali… barely weathered in my brief experience with the Touareg… Yes… I wish I could give to everyone like I will Abraheem… but I can’t… and if I could… and did… it wouldn’t feel right… somehow… so Gifts and Giving… it is the way of happiness… but only if it feels right to the giver’s discrimination… I am a happy Peace Corps Volunteer because of this… I don’t spend much of the U.S. Tax Dollar given to me in Mali… spending it on selfish ends… traveling away from my village to a larger city, buying drink, smoke, and food, or other simple pleasures that disappear with gratification… I am eating only when I am hungry, and often only what is available, I am not going great distances to get what I want or feel I need… I am realizing more and more what it really is I need in the End… my money and the great extend to which I travel is, for me, figuring out the best way to help the people I encounter… the other day I went to the post office in Gao… I was expecting a package with my rock climbing shoes from home… eagerly I wanted these “things”… but the package I got was not the one I wanted… at first… so at first I was sad to not have my climbing shoes… it would now be at least another month before I planned to return to Gao and maybe get the shoes I want… I want only to afterwards go expresses myself on the rock… a release of mine that does little for others… but something for me… littler did I know… but the package that was available to me… then… contained something invaluable… it was a package from an older friend named Anna Woofenden… after examining the “things” that came in the box I read the letter that came with… I was sad to hear that Anna had been down with a case of Lyme Disease… she said in the letter… the package was a pleasure to her… to think of Anna making the choice to give to someone as far away as me… even when in a state of ill feeling… reminded me of the power of giving… imagining how happy it must have made Anna to know that I would be glad to receive her gifts at a later unknown time… it made me happy knowing that she found the joy of giving despite her down condition… I prayered that she was uplifted… probably she has been… her letter spoke volumes… and little did Anna know that the little Ginger Hard Candies she threw in the box would later go to the wife and children of Mosa… and even to the random Tamshek Man… as well as my wife Bess who really enjoyed them because they helped her sore throat… perhaps Anna had such hopes in mind… and what coincidence that the night before Bess and I received Anna’s package we were both looking at some pictures of Anna and her family on our computer… pictures from her brother’s wedding we had not viewed in weeks… wedding of Louis and Kelly… so Yesterday… before I bought Abraheems “Tibidar”, Turban, I was eating a delicious meat sandwich by myself in a restaurant in Gao… It was about 10:00am and I hadn’t eaten anything all day… the sandwich was fabulous… and then… I noticed a street boy sneaking a peak at me through the screen of a street door… when I said to myself… my belly is full… I will not go hungry again between now and dinner… so I stood up… walked out of the restaurant and gave the last half of the sandwich to the boy… no one saw this… even better… the expression on boy’s face was one of pure fear… perhaps he was afraid of what was happening… probably he didn’t believe it… or expect it… he took the sandwich and ran away… I laughed inside because I knew how delicious the sandwich was… having been eating it my self right before giving it away… I knew that the sandwich would taste even more delicious to the boy… and I was happy… mostly because I could recognize in myself the joy that this boy was now feeling being given something so freely, spontaneously, unexpectedly… I knew because others have been doing the same to me… throughout my life… in many places… all I could think about was Gary… the man who brought a collapsible Kayak to me here in Mali. I remember a strange ecstasy overcoming me upon realizing that the Kayak was actually coming… what blessed me the most… was realizing how good people in this world may be… I may never get to know much more about Gary… we could never meet or chat again… and even if this was the case… I know I will always remember Gary because his gift, his generosity, has spoken volumes and touched me about as deep as anyone ever could… so please… for me… for you… think of someone who has touched you… think of something that has been given freely to you… think how happy receiving that “thing” was… and how it was really the giving that made it so truly awesome… now think of some person other than yourself who deserves for whatever reason… to feel that same joy… what could you do for them… buy them… make them… cook for them… I don't know... probably something fun and enjoyable...

Dear Friends and Family

2008-01-23T06:01:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends and Family,

I wish to apologize for taking so long to add another post to what started out as a more descriptive Blog... so now… what’s been happing with Bess and Jared in Mali ??? A quick summary… After Swear in we had a very challenging first month at site... at the end of each day… our heads would hurt from trying so hard to speak Tamashek, or just get around, and even though hours of each days were spent lying motionlessness in the shade - due to intense heat... I measured 47 degrees Celsius during that first month... the season Malians call the Semi-Hot season... the Hot season is coming up this March.... Oh Boy !!! We went into Gao three times... for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas... each time we joined our lovely family of Peace Corps friends from the Gao region and indeed... we had too much candy for Halloween, eat too much Turkey for Thanksgiving, and opened our Christmas packages under a Christmas Tree... Thanks Everyone for Christmas Cheer… We have a great group of people here in Gao... and it has been fun to watch everyone offer various skills and talents while celebrating Holidays away from home... in other words… the girls in Gao can cook… so Our time in Gao has been enjoyable, a good break from site, but Not site. I miss Gossi.... Bess and I left Gossi right before the New Year... and already... not even a month later... Gossi feels like a long lost dream... a too good to be true sort of thing... as if something exists threatening to take it all away... and Yet I know... Gossi is not my home forever... but it is Home to people that will be buried deep in my heart forever... Bess and I spend the New Years in Sevare with some Peace Corps friends... once we got to Sevare our Tamashek became useless... few Tamashek are found in southern Mali... even as North as Sevare… which makes getting around very difficult for me... Bess has done an amazing job learning to speak French along with Tamashek... other PCVs who studied French in High School, College, and have lived in France for some time are confirming how good she has become... Speaking of my Awesome Wife... I love her more and more throughout this Peace Corps experience... some think Peace Corps tears couples apart... but this has not been our experience at all... most this experience... is well... something I found difficult to write about... this is why I have not posted for a while... Bess has been promising to write something for this Blog… so be patient… stay tuned… she will post soon enough… for now… I have good ideas to report... exciting ideas... ideas waiting to become actualities… the ideas are the projects Bess and I wish to work on in Gossi... Projects our Goal 2 of our Peace Corps Mission... Goal 1 is just cultural integration through learning the language and developing healthy relationships with people at site... So the Projects... Where to begin? The Mayor of Gossi is already searching for the right place to establish the first Official Gossi Dump... which is a key step in Bess’ public trash collection project – idea – which Bess and Natalie initiated along with people of Gossi (This was even before IST training), right now people in Gossi burn or burry their trash... often in the streets... some nights in Gossi… I have been forced to sleep wearing a mask because dangerous fumes were coming from random burn piles… the fumes were terrible and caused nausea, couching, etc… Bess and Natalie want to clean up the streets and dump all trash in a designated area... fortunately the people of gossip are excited about doing this... they really like the idea of making Gossi more beautiful… unfortunately the chickens will need to look elsewhere for places to scrounge, lay eggs, etc... Yes… chickens in Gossi have adapted to living in trash piles… the teenagers helping with the trash collection project want T-shirts letting the world know who they are as an organized group in Gossi... I want to help them get these T-shirts (Side Project for us All) and will try raising money in United States to help make the purchase (Peace Corps doesn’t fund things like T-shirts, but trust me, T-shirts are very important to Malian people – especially teenagers). Bess is also working on establishing, in Gossi’s market, public bathrooms for the many people who come to buy things... right now everyone poops and peeps down by the lake or down an empty street... so this is another Bess project… during IST Bess learned a lot about constructing Wells, Pumps, and Cisterns - cement masonry work – something she never thought she would be so good at. Bess will help me make a cistern to feed one of my projects – a dip irrigation system (Moving on to Me). I hope to work with an engineering group like EWB (Engineers Without Boarders) to establish a Clean-Energy method of pumping water out of the lake for irrigation... right now people in gossip irrigate by hand (bucketing water down mud trenches) or by gas-powered pumps (which is not always economically sustainable for the farmers). Another project is for me to run a test-plot of Sorgum and Millet (major grains of the Timbuktu region) for an international agricultural research organization called ICRISAT. The idea is to test several different genetically engineered varieties of Sorgum and Millet and if one variety does significantly better than the rest in the climatic conditions – Use It !!! Another Project I hope to accomplish… is helping a Toureg Group outside of Gao advertise their annual Camel Race to Tourists…. The idea is to help them make a Brochure with their information and my pictures – possibly internet advertisement too. Natalie’s major project is to get a tree nursery going in Gossi... eventually she will start various grafting and tree planting techniques (like PLASA method).... another of Natalie’s is a Community Center... (Library, Computers, and more)... she might need help from people in the United States… providing various supplies… all in all... Bess, Natalie and I are conjuring up many realistic project ideas... we each plan to do several (whatever we can actually accomplish for the locals) projects during our service... and we are all-hands-in for a Gossi team effort… meaning… we are helping each other with these projects... we are collaborating so well… it’s getting difficult to determine who’s projects these our... in essence... they are being carried out by the Gossi Trio and many local people from the Gossi community... which is key to sustainable development – the ultimate aspect of Goal 2. When Bess and I got to Bamako, before IST training, after New Years in Sevare, there was a man named Gary who met us in the Bamako Peace Corps Bureau... here… Gary gave me a nice gift… a Collapsible Kayak… so a fabulous gift… a Kayak from the United States... to make a long story short... picture… the Nicest Man On Earth Ever.... reads this Blog... sends me a short e-mail letting me know he was coming to Mali with his family and friends – asked me if I needed anything brought... I asked for a Kayak... and he brought it.... no expense or work on my part… Brilliant !!! Later I hope to post a more detailed Special Thanks to Gary on this Blog… A post dedicated to his great act of Charity and my gratitude... I’ll show pictures of the boat... Check it Out Now at www.pakboats.com it’s the Puffin 12.... the people at Pakboats even lowered their price to help accommodate Gary’s kindness… so Thanks Pakboats !!! So Yeah Puffin 12, a Kayak that folds up into a duffel bag I can lift with two fingers... Great Christmas Gift Gary !!! Now I hope to do some Bird Research out in the middle of Gossi Lake. So... after the boat excitement Bess and I went into Toubaniso for two weeks of IST training, my favorite classes were... 1. Traditional Medicine with a Malian Dr. who got his M.D. in China... he spoke great English even though it was his forth language (Bambera, French, and Chinese came before), FACT – a Traditional Healer in Mali must be recognized by the community as a healer... In Mali… when it comes to Traditional Medicine… they don’t care about pieces of paper saying whether or not you’ve studied medicine – the community must recognize you as having the knowledge/wisdom. 2. PLASA Method of Tree Planting... a Malian method of planting Trees during the Hot season so that the tree will live as long as it is watered every 45 days... Wow!!! Now we still need to test this method for ourselves over time at site in Gossi, but the method is amazing (I photographed all the steps of the PLASA method). 3. An eye opening presentation by a former Peace Corps Mali Volunteer currently working in Mali on a Fulbright Scholarship... he is working as an apprentice to a Malian Master Magician (Fetish Maker) in Bamako, the Master receives various common but mostly exotic animals parts from Mali and neighboring countries... the Fetish Master then makes various charms out of the raw animal parts and people in Mali actually believe that the Fetish charms have special powers... Yes… people really do where these fetish charms all around Mali (they look like leather wads on string and they contain combinations of animal parts and other things – such as White Man’s Hair)... many Malian men claim to be Fetish Masters... but this Fulbright Scholar claims his master is the best at identifying animal parts from the plethora of animal species that arrive in Bamako (not always in one piece)... apparently... many of the animals thought to be extremely endangered or even extinct in Mali... are coming dead to Bamako (killed by poachers) from the Bafin (Southwest Mali) and other areas on a weekly basis – so the Scholar is saying that the animals are not REALLY extinct... anyway... I don’t have the time to explain how interesting this Fetish business is... but his Fulbright Scholar blew us away with his work... and his pictures… His work is not just research but also supplying the international community with data concerning the animal species being sold on the fetish market (in Bamako), animals such as Lion, Boa, Hippo, Monkey, Leopard... so yeah... apparently Mali has more wildlife than I originally thought. So... IST training was very useful and educational... after IST training... seven of us PCVs (including Bess and I) went to a place called Sibi for a couple days of rock climbing... it was amazing... I have never really watched African people rock climb before and this first experience was Great !!! Pictures will be posted later... Well... Back to Site for now... must launch these project ideas and as well as this new Kayak... Bess and I will make a short visit to the United States this coming spring April/May... to see family, see friends and even watch a few get married. When back in the United States… Bess and I will be looking for ways to share our experience… and in doing so help Americans learn more about life in Mali. By the time we return… we will have a better map of our various projects… and we will be encouraging people to perhaps contribute funds to the projects… NOTE… projects done by Peace Corps Volunteers are ONLY done if the local people (in our case the people of Gossi) are willing to contribute money/labor from their own pockets (often as much as 40, 50%, even 100%); this ensures that the local people actually want the project and have an interest in the project… in other words… PCVs don’t just do their own ideas… ANY project we execute… will be executed with Malian participation… and to an extent Malian Funding… in some cases like Solar Powered or Wind Powered Pump for Irrigation… a larger portion of the funding would be non-Malian… but as the PCV it is our job to incorporate as much Malian funding and participation as humanly possible. To top off what I hope has been an exciting Post… I will add that just before leaving Gossi at the end of December… Bess, Natalie, and I began teaching at one of Gossi’s Middle Schools – so teaching on this level will hopefully continue to be a part of our Piece Corps Experience. Last Bit of Good News… today I purchased a Solar Panel for our home in Gossi… I also bought a fan… so now… in our little mud house… we will be able to power our computer, phones, camera, lights, and fan !!! Life is getting better… P.S. the best way to view my videos is by visiting www.youtube.com and searching reddenalden – you will find all my uploaded videos – Enjoy !!!

Pictures from Gao, Gossi, and Hambori

2008-01-23T05:14:00.000-05:00

Pictures from Gao, Gossi, and Hambori

Biking to the Water Pump in Gossi

2008-01-23T05:11:00.000-05:00

Biking to the Water Pump in Gossi

People are different here in Mali… I still find myself surprised by the way people respond to various happenings…. Once… three boys (around age 10) were with me in my concession… they were play-fighting but some of their punches were pretty hard… to join in on the game… I started throwing some of my own punches (not too hard of course), the children responded by picking up sticks… after a while of fighting with sick weapons… I decided it was a good time to Show Off my Big Dagger from the United States… when I came out of my mud house with the Dagger… the three boys… whom I know better than most people in Gossi – ran away in complete FEAR. I really didn’t do anything threatening with the Dagger… I just thought that since they liked to fight… why not check out my weapon… so anyway… on one of the last days in Gossi… before Bess and I left for IST (end of December) their were children accumulating outside our concession door because… well… they really like Bess and I… and because these children can be very overwhelming at times… we usually try to keep them out of our concession as much as possible… which was also the case on this particular afternoon… but low and behold I had to make a trip to the water pump to get some water… which means riding my bike with two plastic water-jugs, waiting in a tedious line for the jugs to get filled, and then shuttling the jugs one-at-a-time, back to the house… when I was saddling up on my bike… the children gathered around me and grabbed the back-bike-rack (a common occurrence for me in Gossi). You see… the children like to hold on to the back-rack of the bike and run behind the bike as I peddle… which is often annoying because I can’t go very fast this way… and if I do… the children may take a face-plant – which has happened before… so on this particular day… the entire metal rack was covered with the little fingers of say eight children… while other children were grabbing the backs and shirts of these elite eight… I tried asking them to let go… but they just would not… so I took a deep breath and began peddling slowly… and a funny thing happened… they started pushing me along so that I has doing no work… I was surprised because some of them were four-years-old and with so many in such tight awkward quarters it’s surprising they didn’t trample each other… and once we really go going… all the children began screaming, laughing, chanting, and suddenly a larger mob of children formed behind the bike… Boy Oh Boy did we become a scene… conservative Muslim men stood and started in shock as I was pushed down the road on my bike… children Screaming!!!! Any Malian man would have just beat the child if they didn’t let go of the bike… and the woman accumulated at the well… also stood and stared in shock as the mob of children approached… while waiting at the well for my jugs to fill… a 12 year-old-boy asked me if I knew Karati (Martial Arts)… I said yes… even though I’ve never officially taken a class… only seen a lot of movies of this kind…. The boy then asked me to demonstrate a move… so I asked him to gently lift his foot up to his need to form the figure four possition… upon doing so… I kicked my foot through his figure four and wrapped my ankle around his…. He then fell into the Indian Death Lock… a very painful move whereby the victim lies back-of-the-shoulders-on-the-ground, tided up by his own feet around one of my legs (Yeah- you must see it to believe it) – it works. Anyway… the boy, usually cocky as ALL-that, begins fighting within himself to hide his pain… I then asked him politely, slowly, if wanted to take my Bike for ride (because this particularly cocky boy always harassed me at the pump wanting to take my Bike for a ride), and he says gasping “No”, when I asked him a second time… he screamed “No!!! No, No No…” which quickly evolved into absolute begging for Mercy…. After I released the boy, lifted him to his feet, and said a prayer in Tamashek, he lifted his foot back to the figure four position and started at me wondering how I did what I did… by this time the children were flocked around my bike… maybe 12 children total… all with vise-like little hand grips on my bike… just waiting in the ready position so when I returned home… they would have the honor of being one of the lucky Hands-On screaming children… my problem was… I couldn’t ride with a full water jug and so many children… so I figured I might as well work on Ditching the kids as I waited for my jugs to get their turn… so I walked up to my bike… told all the kids to let go for a second… when they did… I ran with bike… jumped on… and road off… with a herd of children screaming and following… this immediately evolved into a game… Chase the White-Guy on the Mountain Bike… so I would go slow… let them catch up… then loose them… after breaking up the mob of them… they dispersed so that about four children existed on each street… now Gossi is a maze of sandy streets and mud houses… and there I was riding circles around the pump, turning through various street allies but never getting a break because there was always at least one child spotting me, screaming at me, and sounding the alarm for the others to follow… it was like run from the street gang of children game… eventually I weaved through a group of five children and did a quick drive up pick up of the first water jug… I rode it back home and then had to peel fingers off my bike as I gained momentum to go back for the second, by the time I got back to the pump the children were waiting and screaming on my return…. The scene got so loud I began to get worried about being disrespectful, you know… because Muslims in Gossi never cause this type of childish commotion… at least I’d never seen it… so I rode up to the pump trying to be serious and ordering the children the quite… but the mob didn’t obey… I threatened to squash their fingers with the water-jug and when they let go I was off peddling again… but wasn’t headed in the direction of home… so I took a round-about way and, UNEXPETEDLY, I turned down an alley where a wedding ceremony was going on… so the wedding was going on… and suddenly this white guy comes flying around the corner on a Mountain Bike balancing a water-jug with one hand as it rested on the back-rack of the bike… and then a mob of fifteen screaming children came running around the corner chasing the guy on the Bike - screaming… Keep in mind that the roads in Gossi are sandy, riding with one-hand carrying a water jug is very difficult… I am sure my facial expression was one of true fear… I was afraid one of the older boys would actually catch up, or maybe I would wipe out… but anyway… I am so embarrassed for disrupting the adults of the town, especially during the wedding ceremony… when I finally got back to the house… I didn’t even have time to put my bike away before the mob busted through our concession door… now there were at least 20 children in my concession… still screaming and chanting… I was happy to see that some of the Blind children had made their way in… so with encouragement I began feeding their energy by picking them up one by one… throwing them up into the air… then catching them on their way down… Once I began feeding their energy things got completely out of control and one of the younger children (2 years old) got trampled… this was when I knew I needed to do something to STOP the commotion and break up the mob… so… what did I do… I ran into the mud hut… and came back out holding my Dagger in one hand and my Machete in the other… I held the blades high above my head, waved them around, and yelled in my best Tamashek “Finished, Go Home Now, Thanks” and suddenly, miraculously, the mob of screaming children stopped, and fled… I have never seen the faces of children switch from crazed happiness to absolute fear as quickly as this… many of them started balling and whaling… It was terrible on my part… but you know what… life is too crazy here in Mali for me to pass any judgment… I can never decide who’s scale to use, a Malian scale, or an American scale… both produce very different results… I guess I will not be too hard on myself for this… I once saw a Toureg man grab the wrist of a small street child… the Toureg put the wrist of the boy on the wooden meat table in the Market… the Toureg then pulled out his Sword and threatened to chop off the kid’s hand… the Boy was full of Absolute Fear… but nothing happened… fortunately… for me… when it comes to children in Mali… they are so innocent… they see a white person and immediate great them in their local language… or French if they are educated… the children in Mali will often run up to you and hold out their hands, stretching them outward, beckoning you to just hold on for a second, for at least a brief moment of contact, sometimes they sneak up behind you and just take your hand in theirs, if you actually embrace these little filthy hands… you can easily watch what seems to me to be the most magical experience in Mali… the face of a small child as it lights up during a moment of mutual embrace.

Pictures From a Climb up Hambori Tondo

2008-01-04T12:41:00.000-05:00

Pictures From a Climb up Hombori Tondo

Reupellious Griffon

Yellow-billed Kite

Reupellious Griffon

Yellow-billed Kite

A Few Pics From Around the Lake of Gossi

2008-01-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

Pictures From Around Gossi Lake

Receading Shoreline

House

Notmadic Tent

Sorgum (like Millet)

Three Camel

Catfish

A Few Pics of the Rock in Hambori

2008-01-04T11:52:00.000-05:00

The Rock in Hambori

Climber Finishes a Top-roped climb

Fox Kestrel sitting by a Climbing Anchor

Steel Escape Cables atop a Finger of Fadima

A Finger of Fadima

A Finger of Fadima

Climber in Action

Climber

Approach to Fingers of Fadima

Two Fingers of Fadima

One Finger of Fadima

A Few Bird Pics

2008-01-04T11:33:00.000-05:00

A Few Birds in Gossi and Hambori

King Fisher

Night Heron

Cattle Egret

Peregrine Falcon

Fox Kestrel

Yellow-billed Kite

First Month in Gossi, Pictures

2007-11-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

First Month in Gossi, Pictures

Sunrise
Gossi by the Main Road to Gao and Hambori

Gossi Lake from a boat

Next Door Neighbors

Bess and Neighborhood girls in our house

Neighbors

Boat in Gossi Lake

Where the meat comes from

Bess with end of Ramadon henna

One of three glasses of Tea right before bed

Two Boys in the Bush

Bike in Bush

Next Door Neighbors

Host Father, Albana, Host Mother, Fadimatta, and family friend

When Ramadon ends, everyone (almost everyone) puts on their best clothes and walk around the neihborhood greeting one another, it's like halloween but everyone wears their best clothes and people only ask for a smiles at the door... these are some girls making their festive rounds...

Some stayed home the day Ramadon ended... the boys...

Fadimatta and her children... they are one of Albana's two families... this night Albana eats with the other family... more children (non-family members) join this family at meal time... they eat anything and everything Bess and I give them... so we try to give them a lot...

Tamashek Swear In Speach

2007-11-23T09:29:00.000-05:00

Tamashek Swear In Speach

When I first arrived at homestay, I was very curious but also a little frightened by the mysterious man behind the blue turban, sitting across from me. He would soon be introduced to me as my Tamasheq father and I wondered why he was covering his face. It wasn’t until 3 days later when he finally unwrapped his turban, revealing his face, that I began to realize what a mysterious and fascinating culture I was becoming a part of.

This is the first time in Peace Corps history that volunteers have been invited to live and work with the semi-nomadic Touaregs of the Sahara and speak the Tamasheq language. We feel very lucky to be a part of this historic event and we hope to give as much to the Tamasheq people as they have already given to us.

The four of us, Natalie, Jared, Bess and Susmita, now known as Aysha, Iknet, Nezzar, and Sadie, were blessed to have been placed with the Tamasheq community in Bamako for our Pre-service Training. Our homestay families have embraced us as their own, including us in weddings, baptisms, naming ceremonies, and spontaneous dance parties. We have also witnessed and participated in some unusual customs. Jared, for example, was introduced to a little-known Touareg practice one day when an elder in his family slapped his inner thigh and beckoned for a massage.

All of our preparation didn’t come without having to stretch our personal boundaries. From maribou visits, to building up a tolerance to tea, to dealing with a constant barrage of marriage proposals, to the early morning wake-up calls from the nearby mosque, we have adapted in ways we never thought we would.

Our LCFs, Abdullah and El-mehdi, along with our families, have given us both the tools to survive in Mali, and the ability to appreciate a culture so different from our own. Amidst all the challenges of learning a foreign language and adjusting to a new lifestyle, we have had an amazing network of support without which we would not be ready for what lies ahead.

It has been our greatest pleasure to integrate into our families, and we can’t express enough gratitude for the way in which they have reached out to us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our host families, and above all, our LCFs, whose passion and dedication, were truly an inspiration to all of us.

Ij ik yalla dihad kay-arhan iman-nak d-imarhan-nak wadden dihad kay-arhan imiksanam-nak. (May you go where people that love you want you to be and not where your enemies want you to be).

The Dogs in Gossi

2007-11-23T09:12:00.000-05:00

The Dogs in Gossi

One of the first evenings in Gossi Bess and I went for a walk around the gardens. We shared the sandy trail for some time with a young adolescent carrying a sharpened stick - about spear length. So after a little while… up ahead on the trail there was a collarless dog frozen in motion – staring us down. The dog dropped it’s head and walked off as if ashamed… but now it seems to me more likely that he was really strategically removing herself from potential danger. Because… spontaneously… the dog accelerated into a run and tried passing us as far from our path as possible… the dog moved pass us hugging the thorny garden fence on our left, about 20 feet away… still accelerating into what back home in BA we might call a Bookit!!! And to Bess’ and my surprise, the young Gossi boy threw his spear at the dog – as if to kill or seriously wound… Bess then screamed out “War Ahooskat!!! Which means… in Tamashek… Not Beautiful… and life in Gossi went on as if nothing had changed. And ten seconds after the boy walked over to the spot where the missed spear was… some very little children appeared on the horizon of our path with a beautiful puppy. Bess then practiced the best of her Tamashek with the children and this lead to an after dinner discussion of “Maybe we should buy a puppy” - for literally 1 USD. So what for a man like me to do? Well – I’ll tell you what happened… around 3 weeks later… the day before Bess’ birthday… a time when I still didn’t have a gift to give her… which was also a time after three nights of discussing a puppy – a discussion which resulted with me coming to terms with my inner anger – so anyway… on the day before Bess’ birthday… Jared was way over on the far side of the garden with a donkey cart and two small boys, picking up a small load of tree posts and saplings for a shade hanger improvement… when I couldn’t help but notice a small puppy tied to a post. What particularly struck me about this puppy was how many ticks were covering the dogs the body… and looking at the poor helpless thing after three weeks of observing the way people and dogs interact in Gossi… I decided absolutely, that I knew a woman and a place where the dog might find a healthier, more loving environment. But what I didn’t know… was if the family who owned the dog would want to part with their puppy. So in my best Tamashek… I addressed the family. Now take one minute to understand this family… they live in a small domed stick hut in the woods… most of everything they owned was right out of the woods… but for some odd reason they were very enthusiastic about receiving my money… so when I asked the chief woman of the family if she would sell the dog, she laughed as if it was the most ridiculous thing she ever heard. And when she finally realized that I was serious, she looked at me as if confused… but because I was very enthusiastic about buying the dog… she ordered one of the larger children to go fetch the boy who had claim on the puppy I wanted. Fifteen minutes later… this young spitfire Tamashek boy comes crashing out of the woods and runs directly over to meet me, and says in his best Tamashek “Nakk Arher Iyyan Efad” which means “I want ten USD”. And I, still in squat position stroking the puppy softly and encouragingly with a crowd of the boy’s family and neighbors around me… looked at the boy and wanted to give him just that… but because it was more money than the donkey cart and lumber added up, I said in my best Tamashek… “Albarka” which means “Lower Your Price”… and the boy said very hopefully… “Iyyan Timad or 2 USD” and I said… “Ajim Nakk ad-akfar Assin Timad i- annan-nak i- eddi” which means… How about I give 4 U.S. dollars to your mother”… and the boy said “Imminda” which means Finished. CHEWY… If you had seen the initial smile on Bess’ face when she realized that the puppy arriving on her doorstep with the children and my lumber – was hers to help, train, and love – you would know… as I have come to know… that purchasing the dog was a good thing… for Bess… she took immediate compassion on the dog she named Chewy, which she named just as immediately as she took compassion. So together… Bess and I took turns holding Chewy down… and pulling off ticks… in which Chewy cried the entire time we took some fifteen ticks out of a single ear… and so… do you think we lived happily ever after… well… I can tell you a few things… since Chewy arrived at our home… we’ve learned that the puppy’s name given by Bess is a little too fitting for comfort… chewy not only chews everything… but she has a very bad biting problem… very bad biting problem… you see… dogs in Gossi are not like domestic dogs in the U.S.A. - they are more like the dogs Tom Brown describes in his book The Tracker. My host father, Albanna, has a dog… it lies everyday in the same lonely shady spot in the far corner of the greater concession, if anyone comes close the dog with threaten with a growl and getting too close means a definite bite. At night I lie in bed watching the stars in my concession and often find myself listening to the dogs fighting and forming packs in the gardens… there are many dogs in Gossi, and they all seem to be wild… children raise puppies here on a leash at all times, often tied to the post, the children hit the puppies, and even throw rocks at them, the puppies lean to lash out… to bite bite bite… and eventually they are let loose to be wild…. Once an elderly man in fully Toureg dress came into the concession of Bess and I to see if I could help fix his cell phone… while sitting in my shade hanger… chewy decided to come meet the stranger… the second Chewy appeared the man’s reaction was to kick Chewy away… dogs are indeed treated differenlyt here in Gossi… Bess and I have not given up yet… we took Chewy for a two and half hour bus ride to Gao… Chewy threw up on me three times in the back of the bus… here in Gao… Chewy is learning a lot and receiving a lot of love from the all the PCVs here… James the guy who lives at the house in Gao, has a nice mature female dog named Regan… and together… we are guiding Chewy toward a path more harmonious with human life – without lashing out. My fear is this… sometimes I see in Chewy what Tom Brown saw in the wild dogs of the Pine Barrens… they just lash out… wild… and hopeless… but Bess and I are willing to parent the dog through childhood and then see if the dogs wants to share two years together…the future for this pup is indeed unknown… but if the dog is truly wild… we won’t stop it from being free… already I’ve been forced to kick chewy out of our concession for causing too much havock… but minuets latter old little Chewy came back in the home through the wash hole, with a loud Yelp because Chewy was getting hit by one of the rocks being thrown by the many street children pursuing her.

**** O.K. All of the above was written about four weeks ago… it is now Thanksgiving and so here is an update on the dog situation… Chewy is in Gao with us for a second time… Chewy and I got a ride here about a week ago with Bess’ APCD (Head of Water Sanitation in Peace Corps Mali) in a Peace Corps Vehicle… Chewy only threw up once in the Peace Corps Vehicle but unfortunately pooped three times… we didn’t know when the vehicle was coming through and it just happened to come after Chewy’s meal… In Gossi… Chewy still acts like a puppy with reckless abandon… not so much wild and dangerous… but more understandable puppy behavior… the children and even adults are of course still afraid of her… and she causes problems for Bess and I such as digging up our tomato garden… chasing the neighbor’s chickens… and knocking over little children at the well… too much havoc for now… so Chewy is in Gao for a semi-permanent residence, through puppyhood, and will mello out living here with Regan and will hopefully return to Gao in two months… this will give Bess and I time to build fences around our gardens and time for Chewy to develop without the influence of Gossi.

So… how are the Dog’s in Gossi… about a two weeks ago I was walking through Gossi alone at about ten-o-clock at night… as a truck passed me on the sandy road… I saw a pack of 20 to 30 dogs gathered on the road up ahead… the dogs were barking… growling… lashing out… and fighting with one another… the truck shed just enough light on the situation for me to grow incredibly scared… and in a flash of a second… the light of the truck was gone and I was left in the dark in the sounds of the angry Dog Mob… the Mob dissipated a little from the disturbance of the truck so that they held both side of the road I was walking down… which meant I was walking between the Mob… I could hear the Alpha Dog barking at me from the left side of the road…a strong warning for sure and I was not knowing whether to call the bluff or not… walking admits the mob of barking dogs I started rehearsing in my head what I would do if 20 dogs attacked me… I started picturing myself whipping out Jet Li moves… but then I decided to just clear my mind all together… and walk on… fortunately the dogs only made some threatening charges that stopped about ten feet from my line… it was my first glimpse of the wild dogs I had been listening to night after night… indeed… they look as scary as they sound… Oh well… I guess Chewy is in line for a different fate… attached is a picture I took of Chewy in the Peace Corps Vehicle… about five minuets before she threw up and started pooping…

Hello Family...

2007-09-27T12:49:00.000-04:00

Hello Family...

Bess and I have a new mailing address… it is now posted in the “Contact Bess and Jared” section of my blog… any mail and packages sent to this address will be delivered to the post office in Gao. We plan on making the trip from Gossi to Gao monthly, or Bi-monthly for mail, money, internet, and supplies. I will also post this new address at the bottom of this letter. You may still send letters and packages to the old address in Bamako, but we will only receive them when we visit Bamako or when Peace Corps divers deliver them to us at site. Probably it is best to use our Gao address… there is a girl from training in our Gao group, Kelly, who is opening two packages she just received in Gao from family in the U.S. – so the address works.

Yesterday, 9/27/2007, I wasted away the heat of the day working hard on a long letter that I was going to e-mail to family and then post on my blog… I wrote during the intense heat of midday… it was around 115 degrees F outside… and 98 degrees F inside the Peace Corps Gao Bureau where I typed on Natalie’s laptop. As I typed… I tried hard to explain to everyone back home… anyone who might care… how hot it really is here in Gao… and to explain how hard it really is to function here… or do anything active at all. Indeed… as I typed that long letter, yesterday, I was sweating profusely… like a sweat lodge… it beaded out of me… while everyone else in the Peace Corps Gao Bureau was either asleep… napping… or had passed out watching a movie… Indeed… as I typed and looked around the Bureau… I really wanted to convey to people back home… that performing work is hard here in Gao… doing anything is hard here in Gao… when it is so hot… people like us just can’t move any more… and any effort that one makes… goes into replenishing one’s food and water supply… some of the Gao volunteers who have lived here for over a year have adapted by becoming more or less nocturnal. But last night… it was still 96 degrees F outside. I am interested to see how we all adapt to the Sahara Desert. Anyway… after I typed a very long letter, yesterday, I then rode my bike through the sandy roads of Gao… looking for an Internet Café. Eventually I found it… but the Internet was down… so biked into market… bought some cold juice… and returned to the Bureau. Today, I woke up still eager to mail my long letter… so I biked back across the city of Gao to the Internet Café… so I would be there when it opened at 8:00am… after sitting outside the Internet Café for one hour in the heat of the rising sun… someone finally showed up and opened the Internet Cafe at 9:00am. Unfortunately, the computers all operate in French… so when I tried to “open” my letter in Microsoft Word, I actually saved a blank document over my long letter… because I wasn’t really “opening” I was “saving as”… so I completely lost my very long letter… as a result… I spent some time posting a few pictures on my blog… uploaded some videos onto Youtube which I then connected to my blog… and then I biked all the way back to the Peace Corps Gao Bureau where I am once again typing on Natalie’s laptop. So… the moral of all this story… is the very thing I wanted to convey in my long letter yesterday… Everything is Made Difficult for us here in Northern Mali.

Bess and Jared

Peace Corps Volunteers

B.P. 119

Gao, Mali

West Africa

Final Days Before Gossi

2007-09-27T12:46:00.000-04:00

The Final Days Before Gossi

All the Peace Corps trainees were back at Toubaniso the week before Swear In. We had finished our language training but still had some various classes in our sectors, such as Agriculture for me and Water Sanitation for Bess. Mostly… we volunteers were ready for free time… relaxing and having fun… during the week before Swear In. My friend Kevin and I set up the slack line… but as appealing as the slack line is… it couldn’t complete with going out to the “bar” – the one down the dirty country road from Toubaniso… but anyway… one night when people came back from the bar… Kevin and I introduced some of them to the slack line… and they loved it. Many people got hurt trying to walk the line for the first time while under the influence of alcohol… but despite the pain the line left an impression on several people… A trainee named Westin went to bed that night and dreamed about the slack line all night long… the next morning he came back to the line determined to walk it… he tried hard… very hard… and there is a video on my blog of Westin crossing the line… I promised anyone who walked both (two were set up making two connecting segments) lines consecutively what I’ve been calling high quality American candy bars, simply… Snickers or Twix. I called them high quality because these candy bars are vastly superior to Malian candy bars – and consequently much more expensive. Bess and Kevin were the only ones who achieved this reward… Westin did awesome nonetheless… it was amazing how many people here had seen slack lining in the United States… but never gave it a try until they came to Mali… Kevin is ordering a slack line form the United States… this is a good thing… During the final days in Toubaniso… we had an excellent crash course in the native snakes of Mali… a really experienced snake expert came to Toubaniso and showed us live snakes… many of them poisonous… and they were all snakes he caught… the man had spend of great deal of life traveling the world catching and studying snakes… especially in West Africa… he had been bitten by sorts of venomous snakes… and had all sorts of anti-venom stories and described firsthand what it was like… We all felt very educated and informed after getting his advice on what to do in Mali… when it comes to snakes. At one point in the snake presentation… I was out on the floor trying to get close to a non-poisonous snake for a good picture… the snake charged me almost as if it were springing an attacked… the man (snake guy) reacted out with his hand as quickly as snake had launched and grabbing the snake by the tail and pulled it backward so it just fell short of reaching me… although this would have been an excellent picture… I missed the shot because I was falling backwards in pure fright as everyone else laughed at me. After the snake session… Kevin and I sat under the tree where the weavers (birds) nest… I have put some of my snake and bird pictures on the blog…

Swear In was awesome… short… condensed… and I had special role… wearing the Toureg costume and giving a speech in Tamashek… everyone loved it… I was on Malian T.V. and had many photos taken of me… or at least of my eyes… a man from the U.S. embassy, a language specialist, came up to me afterwards and expressed his desire to collect my Tamashek notes – for those of you who knew me back in Bryn Athyn – how funny is this – a language specialist wanted something fom “Jawit” – ha ha. Anyway… Swear In was followed by a delicious lunch at the U.S. ambassador’s fabulous house… all I could think about was Bess’ and my uncle Eric Rohtla… someone who has been able to meet many ambassadors in his line of work… and now Bess and I were meeting one too. The U.S. ambassador himself even reminded Bess and I of our uncle Eric Rohtla. After lunch we went back to Toubaniso for a picnic… and Kevin poked my eye during an intense game of basketball. One pupil became very small, the other became very big, it was so creepy to look at, and the nurses had never seen it before. I tried to get a good picture of it but I couldn’t because – well – my eyes and brain were not working very well. Someone got a good picture… maybe I can post it later. Anyway… that night all of us Peace Corps Volunteers spent the night partying in downtown Bamako where we all stayed in a hotel with a pool – this may have been fun but everything looked very dark behind the sunglasses I used to cover up my hideously wounded eye. All I could think… was Thank God I hurt my eye after Swear In… because my eyes were all people could see of me during the speech.

It took a solid day of doing nothing other than sitting, swimming, eating and drinking for most people to recover from Swear In night… and it has taken me about four solid days to recover from my eye injury… nevertheless… Peace Corps Mali always moves forward… so two days after Swear In… we new Peace Corps Volunteers were ready to head off to our sites… regardless of our condition… all of us going North of Bamako, a good forty of us, were relived to find out that Peace Corps rented us our own Public Bus to take us Northward… this was great in that it guaranteed a little more personal space and a lot less stoppage. However… I have yet to travel through Mali without conflict… a couple hours north of Bamako and our Bus driver swerved off the road to avoid colliding with a car… he then swerved backed onto the road to avoid a large sewer ditch that would have been the death of us… and the final result of all this swerving was taking out a man on a motorcycle, whereby the motorcycle man escaped catastrophe with a heroic leap - leaving his bike trapped under our bus… it took several hours for another bus to come (another bus from Bamako that was just for us Peace Corps Volunteers) and it took some time for all our luggage to be transferred onto the new bus. Everyone was O.K – including the motorcycle man. Some of the PCV’s cried and verbally expressed that they had decided that they actually did love their family’s back home, that they did want to see them again, and that they didn’t want to die in Africa. One third of the PCV’s going north of Bamako got off the bus in Segou, a second third in Sevare, and the last third of us, the Gao group, bused from Bamako to Gao (Look at that distance on the map – Wow Baby). At least we had an entire bus to ourselves… and I probably would have even enjoyed it but I got food poisoning from lunch in Segou… at least I was able to hang out of the bus door and throw up…and that’s what I was still doing when the bus arrived outside the Peace Corps Gao Bureau – I was throwing up out of the door of the moving bus. We left Bamako at 6:30am Sunday 9/23/07 and arrived at the Peace Corps Bureau in Gao around 6:00am the next day.

Today is Thursday 9/27/07, so we have only been in Gao living at the Bureau for four days… and although this doesn’t seem like much… it really is… because life is hard here in Gao… and we’ve spent too much time in the market exposed to the sun. Since the city of Gao will be a significant aspect of being placed in Gossi, I will take some time to describe it. Gao is a large city on the edge of Niger river, some 40,000 people live here, this is amazing because aside form the river - there is nothing here but sand and some semi-arid pastoral land. There are several paved roads in Gao but most of roads are made of sand… there is some electricity in Gao but not everyone has it and it doesn’t always work… there is some running water but not everyone has it and it doesn’t always work – people still draw water from wells. A PCV can find restaurants and even cold drinks in Gao… but refrigeration is a rarity and eating out brings up sanitary issues. The only swimming pool in the entire city is found in the Mayors home – so no swimming for us. Tourists, especially from France, do make their way as far Northwest in Mali as Gao, so the city does provide accommodations for these adventuresome souls – but I really haven’t seen anything in Gao that would make the long trek here supper worth it – there isn’t much you could put on a brochure. Kidal, way up north of Gao, is even more remote and would actual fulfill a tourist’s desire to see huge rolling sand dunes… but that far north is not considered safe for travel. The Market in Gao is quite impressive and open everyday unlike the smaller cities and towns. The market consists of a plethora of people speaking various languages: Tamashek, Songri, Fullani, Bambera, French, and more. Shopping in the market can be quite an adventure… with Toureg eyes following you through their turbans, street children crowding around you and staring with beggar’s eyes, and all these eyes amongst a large mob of people overflowing the streets with activity and creating a ruckus chorus that never changes tune – shopping changes when fixed prices disappear.

Life at the Peace Corps Bureau in Gao is a little more quite… with high standing walls around the complex we create our own little American world. In here, amongst ourselves, speaking English and talking like Americans about people, food, and things back in America – we often forget what really exists on the outside of the Bureau walls. Then we hop on a bike to go buy bread and peddling down the sandy street we ask ourselves “I am really here… is this really happening”. And so it all… reality that is… becomes quite apparent to us when we realize how deprived we really are from American luxury… and how much we treasure care package items… Hint Hint !!! Anyway… as deprived as we are… we try… we have a refrigerator that sometimes works… electricity powering outlets, lights, a computer (soon to have dial up internet), and a ceiling fan… that all… sometimes work… and when the electricity is on… and the water is running… and everything is working… I might even be able to convince you that I lived in the ghetto of Philadelphia… but all in all… no one here will complain about a thing… life is pretty good in the Peace Corps Gao Bureau… because we Volunteers have each other… and we are sharing something unique… something we all chose for ourselves and for different reasons… so we all share something different and something in common… and so each night… when the sun goes down… we all climb to the stairs to the roof of the Bureau… lay our mats on the cement rooftop… and fall asleep in the city of Gao… This where Bess and I will return… the city of Gao… this is where all of the PCV’s in the Gao region will return… the city of Gao… but tomorrow… it’s time to go to site… to Gossi…

So… I won’t be able to update my bog as frequently as I have been doing… Gossi doesn’t have the means… so when I am back in Gao… no latter than a month from now… I’ll try posting again… something about site… something about Gossi…

Tahuladtanin – “Say Hi to the People you meet from me”

More Pictures...

2007-09-27T12:15:00.000-04:00

More Pictures...

Host Mother (Fadimatta), Host Father (Amano), Iknet and Nezzar at

the United States Embassy in Mali

(unknown baby in Fadimatta's arms)

Elmedhi and Iknet (Jared), two buddies...

one becoming American... the other becoming Toureg

Peace Corps Volunteers, Swear In, 2007

Bess at U.S. Ambassadors House

Bess' new haircut...

she says it's an important thing to be on our blog

Jared, after battle with Kevin on the basketball court...

also an important aspect of the blog

Pictures of the Bus Accident on the Way to Gao

2007-09-27T06:06:00.000-04:00

Pictures of the Bus Accident on the Way to Gao

Yes, we were in the Bus...

Fortunately our Bus driver missed the car pulling out in front of us, and missed the giant ditch that would have caused us to flip, the man on the motorcycle fortunately jumped ship just in the nick of time.

Again, fortunately the motorcycle driver jumped ship just in the nick of time.

The solution, wait with the locals for several hours until another bus arrives. It only added about three hours to what became a twenty five hour bus ride...

Swear In

2007-09-27T05:47:00.000-04:00

Peace Corps Swear In

Swearing in to Peace Corps was a fabulous thing… the night before Swear In I read an e-mail from my sister Normandy… she gave a Swear In speech in Zarma during her service in Niger… so she was telling me that most people have only two minuets of fame in their life and that hers was in Niger, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, giving her Zarma speech… well indeed… Normandy was right… I had quite the day of fame on Swear In day here in Mali… My host father… Amano Ag Issa… dressed me up in his best Toureg clothing… in the cloths he himself wears when performing in weddings and baptisms… so I went to Swear In dressed up in full Toureg attire… and everyone loved it… and they seemed to love me… perhaps because I was the only person dressed up like a Toureg… and the Toureg people look very cool in appearance… very different than the other Malians… and because this was the first time Peace Corps had taught volunteers to speak Tamashek… they really made a big deal of it… it was a day of fame for sure… I am glad our language instructor, Abdalla, helped all four of us Tamashek students write the glorious speech I gave. I was so happy to deliver it… even though I was sweating under my Toureg attire. So how famous am I… well… I was on T.V. in Mali… and I gave my speech on the lawn of the U.S. embassy in front of the U.S. ambassador… later I had my picture taken with him… when we (all new Peace Corps Volunteers ) went to the ambassadors house for a delicious lunch. Life was good this day of Swearing In… people loved me for what I did and how I did it… and I had… like my sister said… fame… but for two minuets only… because not long after I gave the Tamashek speech… my good friend Kevin tomahawked me in the eyeball with his finger during an intense game of basketball. I was then sent to the hospital in Bamako. So what started out as a great day of fame, resulted in a day that required three days of recovery… oh well… I guess that’s my story of fame… a little fame for a moment… and then a long recovery…

Pictures of Swear In

Jared practicing Tamashek speech with language instructors, Abdalla and Elmedia.

Host father, Amano Ag Issa, making sure everything is going fine

The Tamashek class, language instructors, and Susmita's host parents

Iknet Ag Amano

Bess at the U.S. Ambassadors House

Jared and the U.S. Ambassador

Jared on the way to the hospital in Bamako, hours after giving speech,

can you notice the difference in pupil size, my left pupil was very small while my right pupil was very large.

O.K. fame time over...

More Birds and now Snakes

2007-09-27T04:56:00.000-04:00

More Birds and now Snakes

A type of African Weaver, these birds live in large communities,

localized in several neighboring trees,

the males build basket-like nests which the females lay eggs in,

here a male is beginning the project.

A little further along in the project

An example of many nests in a tree

This is the snake expert (and his son) who came to Toubaniso to educate us on all the various poisonous snakes in Mali, fortunately, he had living examples to show us - snakes he caught himself. He was also able to explain what being bit by a venomous snake was like (because he had been bit himself - many times). He also taught us what to do if we are bit - things to increase likelihood of survival. Here is a Boa he caught Native to southern Mali.

This is a very poisonous and deadly Viper that lives around and in our site, Gossi, there is no anti-venom for this Viper in all of Mali. If a Peace Corps volunteer is bit by this snake, the best thing to do is catch the quickest flight to Morocco - where the nearest anti-venom is found.

Here is another example of a deadly snake that lives around and in our site, the poisonous Spitting Cobra, it spits in the eyes of it's victim before biting, our snake guide said, "having this Cobra spit in your eyes is not fun, it takes two weeks for your eyes to recover completely, it also hurts a lot, and the venom and anti-venom are also painful". Our snake guide seemed to have sampled every kind of venom and anti-venom.

Tree Snake Native to Mali

Boa Native to Mali

Samantha loving the Snake Show

This is Sean

The only other guy going to the Gao region

Who Does this Toureg Man Look Like???

2007-09-20T19:47:00.000-04:00

Who Does this Toureg Man Look Like???

To all my friends who know Bryn Athyn people... look at this picture of Elmedhi's Toureg cousin... and post a comment on this blog saying who he reminds you of... in BA... Thanks...

If you want to get an idea about this Toureg's personality... he insisted on seeing the pictures I took of him... and then he made me delete the ones he didn't like... I love this guy...

The Final Days of Home Stay - letter home to family

2007-09-20T14:38:00.000-04:00

The Final Days of Home Stay

(a letter home to family)

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.

Final Days of Tamashek School

2007-09-20T14:17:00.000-04:00

Final Days of Tamashek School

Working

Resting

Sleeping

Epony (chief chef)

Elmedhi

Abdalla without tooth

Abdalla with tooth

Our Tamashek Friends

Again - Friends

The Tamashek Learning Crew

The Final Days at Home Stay

2007-09-20T12:54:00.000-04:00

The Final Days at Home Stay

Natalie's Home Stay Family

Mohammed Ag Issa counting prayer beads

Amano Ag Issa, the Inhardant, making a shaft for a Tihardent

Fadimata Wallet Hamanu, the mother, making leather pillows,

which were later given as presents to Bess and I - Toureg Woman do work

Sister Ayisha bathing younger brother Akmad

Just before Site Visit, I tightened the chain on Akmads bike - so it wouldn't fall off all the time, like every 30 seconds, when Bess and I came back to Kalabankoro (Home Stay), Akmad was riding the bike on two wheels, in this picture he is working on peddling up the slight incline, Akmad is all self motivation, notice the technique he developed, he sits on the metal above the back wheel because the seat is too floppy

I gave Akmad a light Saber from the U.S.A., he loved it, they all loved it, I brought it out at night during our final family dance party, Akmad used up all the battery that night, here he is the next day... still loving the gift but sad to see us leave... every boy deserves a chance of becoming a Jedi.

Sister Tinelbarka

Language Instructor, Abdalla, and Amano Ag Issa

Amano Ag Issa coming out of the Taylor's... the square red window is where Bess and I stayed, Yeah... you may remember from "A Day in Home Stay" that men gather under it at night to smoke, talk, and make tea..

Part of the Larger Family

Family Photo: Ikent, Amano, Boubacar, Fadimata, Akmad, Tinelbarka, Aysha, Mohammed, Nezzar, Aysha (Abdalla is missing from the photo)

A Bike, Hike and Climb - plus birding

2007-09-18T19:42:00.000-04:00

A Bike, Hike and Climb - plus birding

Bess, Meg and I left Toubaniso one afternoon with no destination in mind... we rode out on Bikes... Meg suggested that we try to reach the cliffs in the distance - Bess and I didn't refuse. For this one afternoon during training, we three were free, there was no one to tell us what to do and where to be when. We peddled through open fields of Millet, Sorghum, and Corn, through village after village, naked children running around and playing in the dirt, and woman hard at work pounding grains... we reached the cliffs and hiked up to the top, our reward was a view of Bamako, the Niger river cutting through the city, and the vast green countryside surrounding Bamako. The natural beauty made us feel miles away from all the Hub-bub. I did a little bouldering... posed for some fake "Bare-Foot-Free-Soloing" pictures... and watched a small raptor sour above our heads. Bess was happy with grass... so green and soft...

Gazzel

Bess and Meg hiking up

Half Way

Concession below the cliffs - not far from the city of Bamako

Bess and Meg at the Top of the Cliffs

Jared Climbing

Bess taking a picture

Unidentified Raptor - reminds me of a Northern Harrier back home

Bess in the Grass atop the cliffs

Is there Rock Climbing in Mali?

2007-09-04T15:18:00.000-04:00

Rock Climbing in Mali

As one happy Peace Corps Trainee discovered… Mali has a lot of vertical rock … there is a plethora of large cliff faces in the Mopti region… a variety of mesas erected like rock pillars supporting islands of isolated green forests sitting atop hundred foot faces rising out of the semi arid flats (see pics of Mopti region in the Landscapes of Mali section on this blog).

In the lush southern part of Mali… one can also find many cliff ridges and some unique rock formations constructed out of sedimentary remains… although much smaller in size compared to the rock faces found in Mopti… a climber can not complain about the level of grip found on the southern rock…

For those of you who know Jared… you may be happy… to hear that I have “some access” to this favorite past-time of mine, rock climbing… however… here in Mali I am very busy as a volunteer and am finding it more exciting to learn about what this rock means for the well-being of the Malian people… and learning about what we in Peace Corps are calling sustainable development…

Rock climbing is an already established form of Ecotourism here in Mali. French climbers have had a strong presence here in Mali… they have left a trail of local Malians educated and very enthusiastic about rock climbing, making climbing accessible to tourists, and using it for economic gain while also filtering some of the revenues back into protecting the beautiful habitat that makes the climbing experience here in Mali – well – priceless…

Indeed, the rock climbing scene here in Mali has already developed into an international attraction, with climbers coming from all over of the globe… I have not see or heard much about the semi-big-walls of the Mopti region, but I know it exists from what other PC volunteers and climbing guides have told me… when stopping at a gas station along the highway in the Mopti region (on the way from Bamako to Gossi) I was asked by locals if I was arriving to climb rock (sadly I was not)…I also noticed the local hotel/restaurant established for tourists coming to trek and climb… all it really took was one look at the Mopti cliffs, with the heart of a climber I realized that someone else with the same love as me has already enjoyed the combination of rock and human movement… Indeed… my homologue in Gossi, Boubacar Gindu, is a Dogon man who grew up living in the Mopti cliffs, he says “I had to climb the rock everyday to get inside my house built in the cliff face – I grew up climbing…”.

My experience of rock climbing here in Mali has come only through Peace Corps… The Natural Resource Management (NRM) volunteers, like Natalie, went on a planned field trip to visit a local rock climbing facility, which was more broadly an Ecotourism operation, located just outside of Bamako. The purpose of the field trip was to learn about rock climbing in Mali, Ecotourism, and sustainable development… it didn’t take long for me, Bess, and Susmita to find our way onto what was an excellent NRM field trip…

Rock Climbing Field Trip

We traveled in a Peace Corps bus to a small town called Sidi about an hour outside of Bamako down a “mostly” paved road. The facility was nice, clean, and reminded me of a climbing facility I had stayed at in Krabi, Thailand… there were many small rounded straw-roofed bungalows in a complex with a communal “hangout” hanger and a restaurant/bar, a perfect place for people asking nothing else in life but a place to eat, sleep, climb, and ever once in a while… drink… the local guides were easily recognized by their constant smiling and emanation of happiness – I can always recognize a person who makes a living taking people rock climbing – they have the same - I am living Jared’s dream written all of them… anyway… we learned that people came to this facility mainly to rock climb but also to hike… and we then learned about a nearby waterfall and gigantic cave worth hiking to… so after an hour of talking about Ecotourism… the Peace Corps staff told us that the best way to learn about Ecotourism is to do it… and see first hand why it is appealing and worth paying money for… so we went hiking through the forests to see the climbing site… waterfall… and gigantic cave…

The rock climbing site was awesome… there are many established routes… all bolted climbs… and the rock is brilliant in color (red, brown, black), has many unique features, is grippy in texture, and forms some wild routes… we didn’t get to climb due to limited time and the size of our group… but barefoot-free-soloing was acceptable… one of the climbing guides complimented me on my technique and the head of the NRM department challenged me to climb higher… what fun… not only did we see the climbing area but we also heard the legendary Africa stories that blessed or haunted the various lookouts, caves, and outcrops – “this is where a warrior carved a hole in the rock with his tool to prove that he had magical powers strong enough to defeat his enemy, and so his villagers followed him into battle… etc…”

The waterfall was very beautiful too… the cave was very BIG and had an awesome view… the rock climbing was gorgeous… so Mali is a great place to visit… and rock climb… best of all… all this may be used to bring prosperity to a country limited in Natural Resources… good thing some of us have a deep love of climbing rock…

Pictures of Rock Climbing Site, Waterfall, and Big Cave

Talking about rock climbing in Mali and Eco tourism in the hotel/hostel/hanger

Hiking to the rock climbing site

Hiking up to the rock climbing site

Climbing Guide in white-cap

Good friend Kevin at the rock climbing site

Good Friend Kevin, at the hole made by the warrior

Listening to African Legends, at the look-out

Peace Corps Trainees
at an outcrop-lookout

Bess

Where the warrior cut a hole in the rock

Peace Corps Bus

parked near rock climbing site

Peace Corps Trainee, John, at waterfall

Hiking to the Waterfall

Peace Corps Trainees at Waterfall

Hiking to the big cave

The big cave

Peace Corps friends in the big cave

The group (NRM and others) in the mouth of the big cave

The big cave

Southern Mali

Jared wrestling with a boulder problem

Jared making yet another move upward

Jared pulling the crux at the top of the problem

Jared topping out while peacing (corps) out

Transportation in Mali

2007-09-04T14:44:00.000-04:00

The Road to Gao

Although our site in Mali, Gossi, has a population relative to 20,000 people, and is thus a city at large, it really is too primitive a place for us to fulfill all of our needs as Peace Corps Volunteers, for example, banking and Internet communication. So being located in Gossi has with it the necessity of traveling to Gao every so often for Banking and Internet, and this travel requirement is accompanied by an even longer journey that must be made whenever we return to Bamako. During Site Visit, one of the important characteristics of our site, Gossi, was distinguished by it’s remote location and the role transportation will play in our lives as volunteers in northern Mali – an out there out there location. This section of my blog is dedicated to transportation in northern Mali, and the events that took place during our site visit…

We took public transportation from Bamako to Gossi. The entire trip took a total of nineteen hours, which wasn’t too bad considering that our expectations told us “fifteen hours”. Beyond expectation was the heat, stench and humidity on board the bus, the frequent stops the bus made, how long each stop was, and the uneventful and unexplained reasons in which the bus was stopping. One African man decided to bring his lit cigarette onto the bus, although he was only permitted to keep it a short while, it nevertheless didn’t help the limited air supply on board. It was also interesting to behold a group of woman walking off the bus, squatting next to the road, and taking what was a very public and communal poop. Overall, the trip to Gossi was a breeze compared to the trip back to Bamako.

The Road to Gao…

My homologue, Boubacar Gindu, arrived at our house at 5:00am to walk us to the paved road. It is a thirty minuet walk from our (Natalie’s and then mine and Bess’) homes in the center of Gossi to the paved road, and at this time of morning the event was a spectacle of pure beauty (some of my sunrise pictures can be seen in the blog section titled Gossi). As we walked this morning in silence and solitude, in a sleepy but happy and wakeful state, we remained unaware of the disaster in which we drew closer with each advancing step. We got the first taste of disappointment when we reached the paved road at 5:30am and learned that we had missed the first two buses, and that the second one had just passed fifteen minuets before we arrived. Fortunately, Boubacar Gindu was willing to wait with us as we three PC trainees waited for a third bus that would most likely come sometime in an hour or two, which wasn’t too bad considering that the fourth bus would show up sometime between 10:00pm and perhaps as late as 3:00am the next morning – and that’s not a good time to be waiting by the side of the road. Something to appreciate is how much more the United States functions in a timely fashion

When the bus came at 6:00am we thought, for sure, that luck was on our side and that nothing could prevent us from enjoying a day of shopping, dining, and relaxing in Gao. It was during this state of overconfidence that I proposed a question to Bess and Natalie that would later define the moment in which we sacrificed our power and freedom to secure a safe trip to Gao. I asked, “Does someone want to call Omar Cisse and let him know we are getting on the Bus?” One of the girls replied, “No, we will call him from the bus on the way to Gao, we have two hours”. Sounds simple enough… and none of us thought anything more… and why should we…

Now Gao is only meant to be an hour and a half from Gossi using public transportation, and there are only several stops along the way because there really isn’t much between Gossi and Gao but a couple of small villages. Our language instructor, Abdalla, had sent us a text message from Bamako two days before saying that the road from Gossi to Gao was broken, but we had heard that it was fixed since then… so we expected no difficulty in our travel plans… but apparently the road broke again during the night so 45 minuets into the drive we found ourselves pulling up behind three other buses stopped dead along the side of the desert road. Apparently, the rains had formed a river in the desert which destroyed the road and made the surrounding area impossible for any bus to continue. It was even difficult for off-road vehicles and large trucks. Our bus, company Binki, was the fourth bus behind three other buses, all company Sonef. If Sonef was a Four Season’s Hotel, Binki would be less than a Holiday Inn. All three Sonef buses were full of people, luggage, and random cargo items; the first bus had been there since 3:00am, the third bus was the one we had missed by fifteen minuets. At first, we didn’t realize what was going on, we though these people had decided to throw a party at some random location along the side of a desert road, because… people were making tea… cooking meat… selling cookies… smoking cigarettes… it only took a couple minuets before Natalie translated from French to English that the road was out and that these people had been waiting since 3:00am for off-road transportation to arrive… So realizing that we too could be stuck in the desert for a while… we took refuge in the shade of a tree… and that’s when we had the bright idea of calling and having Omar Cisse come pick us up in a Peace Corps vehicle – only there is no and never was any cell phone reception outside the cites of Gossi and Gao and thus no reception in the middle of nowhere - desert. And so I began kicking myself for having not called Omar Cisse as he himself had advised me to and I myself had promised him I would. In other words, a simple phone call not made in Gossi became the mistake that cost us a day in the desert waiting under the hot sun.

We were never really sure how serious our situation was until the first transport arrived and we saw people fighting their way onto the back of a flatbed truck, forcing and pushing, begging to be the chosen ones. We were happy to see woman and children being given some priority and astonished to see some men grabbing onto the back of the truck at the last moment to ride out into the desert with what little strength they had left in their arms. We sat in the shade and watched, waiting patiently, because we figured that most everyone else had waited much longer than us, and so we wanted to see them leave before us… and so we waited…and waited… and waited… and every so often a big truck or small off-road vehicle would come out of the desert and fill up to the brim with people, luggage, and cargo… and would then disappear back into the desert… and we waited and watched… and eventually the sun and heat got to us… and we wanted to get out of the desert as soon as possible… whatever the cost… and so Natalie started translated in French… and the news was this… “there is a transport coming for you” and then a transport came and they said “this transport is not for you”… and this happened again and again… and again… and we got very anger when a flatbed truck left the scene full of mostly luggage, some people, and whereby there was easily enough room for us three PCT’s to be on it. So Natalie asked in French and we discovered that all the transports showing up and leaving were Sonef, and Sonef wouldn’t allow any non-Sonef travelers (Binki) to use there transports because – that’s how Sonef does business. Unfortunately, at this point Bess was running a high fever and developing heat stroke, she really wasn’t looking healthy, but weathered, and nobody seemed to care about her well-being – only good Sonef business strategy, which was really poor strategy if you ask me. So as Bess withered in the sun, Natalie and I watched trucks leave for Gao in which we could have been on. Eventually, the first Binki transport arrived… it was a hideous deep bed dump truck with sharp flailing metal coming off the back end, sharp enough to slice an arm off. The truck had obviously been used recently for construction but was now being used to transport people and luggage. As hideous as this truck was, Natalie, Bess and myself were trying desperately to make sure we were going to be onboard, at first, they were telling us “no problem”, “sure you can go”, so Natalie and Bess and gave them their luggage and their bags were tossed into the truck bed and buried under a mountain of random luggage, cargo, and random stuff… it was once their lugged was lost and buried in the back of the truck that they then said we couldn’t ride on it because it was too full of stuff… so they tried to make us walk the desert detour… or walk down the broken paved road… saying “there is another bus at the other end of the desert detour that will take you to Gao, the truck will shuttle your luggage but you will need to walk” and they gestured for us to follow these two young men into the desert. I said, “Natalie, tell them there is no way we are walking off into the desert with them”. So then they told us we would have to wait for the next Binki transport, indeed, some people did go walking off into the desert, but they were few. I didn’t feel good about the girls being separated from their luggage so I wanted someone to ride on the dump truck with the girl’s bags, but they were only letting men on the truck, so I decided to leave Bess with Natalie and ride with their luggage since I was a man. Once I climbed on top of the truck I looked down at Bess, saw her condition, and decided that she needed to get out of the desert as soon as possible. I couldn’t leave her… So I yelled to the girls… “You need to get on this truck, Now!!! Get up here, Now!!! Climb!!!” And so the girls climbed on to the truck, and it was, indeed, a difficult climb because the truck was not designed for people to be climbing, no ladders, no handholds, nothing but smooth sloping burning hot metal… the truck was overflowing with stuff… concave… and we sat at the tip of the pile crammed with a multitude of Africans, some men were buried with the luggage, some had people sitting on top of them, everyone was overlapped and tangled. They continued to load stuff on top of the people and they placed a metal stove, with sharp-hot metal, right below me so that gravity was pulling me into it. It seemed like all it would take was a tiny bump and everyone and everything would go spilling over the edge of the truck, which was about five feet below all of us at the top of the pile. I wish could have taken a picture of this but I didn’t want to risk bringing my camera out. And so the truck headed out into the desert and we road sand dunes like a ship riding giant waves in a storm. There were some pretty tall trees with very spiky, razorblade sharp, thorns that the truck would drive between, the front of the truck would push the branches back so that they then came whipping along the pile of people and stuff elevated above the bed rim, as the branches clawed along the crowd of men, people cried out in pain, some dug themselves into crevasse, hid behind neighbors, or grabbed objects to use as shields. I saw a spiky branch come whipping right over this man’s face brushing his scalp - his facial expression afterwards was priceless, it was during the first wave of branches so I guess God gave him a lucky break, the next time a branch came this man was well prepared… unbelievable this was… we three PC trainees were at the top of the pile and not in range of the branches… lucky I guess…

The detour was a thirty to thirty-five minuet desert rollercoaster and then we wound back to the paved road where there was a bus waiting for us. Those who decided to “walk it” could be seen coming down the paved road so I guess it was a “doable” walk, but not for Bess in her weakened condition, and how the “walkers” crossed the river of water we avoided with the detour I still don’t understand… but for us who rode the truck… things only got worse when we reached the bus… There were more people on the detour truck than could fit inside the bus. Because Bess’ condition wasn’t improving and we were trying to reach Gao at soon as possible, we had to board the bus early to insure a seat. This meant suffocating in what was indeed a hot, humid, airtight bus. The men outside were unloading the dump truck and loaded everything into the under compartments and onto the roof of the bus, we gave up caring about the girls luggage and just prayed that it would arrive in Gao and more importantly – us also… as all of the free-space on the bus, on top of he bus, and underneath the bus became filled… the worker men started bring cargo items into the bus… can you imagine what they placed in the center isle next to the girls and me… huge bags of manure piled on top on each other and sweaty worker men sitting on top of the manure bags dripping sweat onto my head… and so this is how you can imagine our arrival in Gao… a bus full of the unfortunate Binki travelers along with all of the worker men from Gao who came to move our luggage from bus-to-truck-to-bus and so you can imagine a bus with enough people to barely fill comfortably, two busses! Also imagine the roof of the bus mimicking the Leaning Tower of Piza with all those objects that would make the tower collapse placed inside the bus among the passengers. Bess was passed out on my left – like a beautiful flower whither, eyes closed, as if dead, lifeless in appearance, a bird gone, migrated, before her rightful time, and on my right, three huge bags of manure topped off with a couple sweaty worker men – dripping sweat onto my head… there was one small window open in the entire bus, every once in a while we felt a faint breeze carrying a hint of fresh air, a reminder that somewhere, somewhere??? There was fresh air, something to be breathed that did not taste of manure…

As we reached Gao Natalie called Omar Cisse on his cell phone. Omar said he would pick us up at the Bus station. When Omar arrived we told him what happened, he said, “You should have called me when you were leaving Gossi, I would have come and picked you up after not finding you an hour and a half later at the Binki bus station”

“You would have picked us up”

“Of Course”

We finally arrived in Gao at 3:00pm, having left Gossi at 6:00am. So what was meant to be an hour and a half bus ride ended up taking us a total of nine hours. The next morning (7:00am) we (Natalie, Bess, and I) were meant to set up a bank account in Gao and then take a bus from Gao to Bamako, an estimated 20 hour bus ride. Bess lay in bed at the Peace Corps house in Gao all afternoon and night once she got there, she had a fever of 101.5 F, the next morning we set up our bank accounts and Bess left Gao with Omar Cisse to return to Bamako in a Peace Corps vehicle, in what would be a two day voyage with a somewhat pleasant overnight stay in a Peace Corps facility midway between Gao and Bamako. I left Gao at noon with Natalie and 10 other Peace Corps trainees from the Gao region (noon the day after the day in the desert) we traveled from Gao to Bamako, we also had to go through the desert detour, but in reverse. It wasn’t as bad going in reverse the next day because we used Sonef and they were well prepared for us. On the way back to Bamako, in the middle of the night, around 2:00am, some armed bandits were on the prow up ahead of our bus, so our bus diver pulled over and waited with a number of other trucks and buses for a military escort to arrive. Eventually (after several hours), the military escort arrived and we continued to Bamako in a convoy, but our bus broke down on the “dangerous” stretch of highway and unfortunately the military just left us along the side of the road, they didn’t even stop to check on us, and so we trainees closed all the curtains to bus and had a very frightening experienced waiting for the bus to get fixed, well, others were frightened – I was too tired and depressed to care… For dinner I purchased some meat wrapped up in a paper bag, as I eat the meet a street child stood right in front of me staring into my eyes with a hungry expression, when I walked away the boy came after me, he following me with persistent outstretched hands, since I was so hungry myself, I eat all of the meat except for a piece of fat that I didn’t find appetizing. I wondered if the boy wanted it, and so I lowered it in the paper to see what he would do, in an instant, he snatched at the small piece of meat-fat just as two other boys, I hadn’t noticed, came out of nowhere and fought him for my meat-fat-scrap, they were vicious and only one of the boys walked off unsatisfied with the piece of fat he fought for and won… On the bus from Gao to Bamako… I sat next to a young Toureg man… through communicating in my best Tamashek… I learned that he was traveling with his wife and three children… they had no work or source of income in Gao anymore… and so they were looking for work and hoping to find support from relatives in Burkina Faso, but they only had enough money to make it to Bamko (where they knew no one, and had no family), I shared some food and water with the family, and the youngest daughter slept with her legs stretched out across my lap… I wanted the armed bandits to come and deprive me from all my expensive possessions… but they didn’t… they never came… the entire drive from Gao to Bamako took 25 hours, 25 hours…

The Gao group is already renowned at Toubaniso by the other PC trainees as the trainees who are out-there-out-there in site location. Everyone now knows the story of the Gao trainees who survived the 25 hours bus ride, public transportation, with a desert detour and armed bandits, but what few realize is that there is an even more select group of trainees, the Gossi group, who survived a day in the desert with a wicked detour the day before the notorious trip from Gao to Bamako…

See Pictures Below...

Toureg House by the Road going from Gossi to Gao, Toureg (in shade of tree) watching the Bus people

The disaster scene from the top of the Binki Bus

A motorcycle they took off the roof of the bus and tried to leave on, a Sonef transport (in the background) we did not leave on

Where we broke down... notice Bess and Natalie seeking shelter in the shade of some trees

The Desert Flooding in the Monsoon Rains

Local Toureg House between Gossi and Gao

The Buses... three Sonef (in front) and Binki (in the back)

The Local Toureg boys

A Toureg boy I practiced speaking Tamashek with

This was the dump truck we left in, in this picture it is just arriving to the scene, so all of those men in it are the "worker men" who moved our luggage, now picture that same truck leaving full of our baggage and cargo, all of those worker men, plus a bus load of people...

Wildlife in Mali

2007-08-29T14:36:00.000-04:00

Wildlife in Mali

Unfortunately, the lions have all been exploited from Mali. This is quite the joke used by the locals during PC training “No you will not be eaten by a Lion here in Mali” – which is true, but in reality our situation is worse… we have a greater probability of catching a microscopic bug or worm that will eat us from the inside out.

I think there are some Lions not too far away in a Niger reserve and that my sister Normandy actually new a PCV during her service in Niger who raised two baby Lions for that reserve. I also think Giraffes can be seen in Niger and that my parents saw them when visiting my sister.

Since the Malian ecosystem once possessed these massive beauties, one might think that they could eventually be reintroduced, but with human population on the rise along with habitat destruction, there is room to be skeptical in Mali’s ability regain all of the splendor it once had.

So, what does Mali still have that’s worth holding on to. Well, chickens, roosters, goats, cattle, horses and donkeys are not on the endangered or even threatened list – only the rare sub-species of these farm/herd animals, the ones that try to make a living in the middle of human roads are having a rough time surviving. Otherwise, donkeys live in abundance here in Mali…

I know of at least two populations of Elephants in Mali. One is a nomadic population I believe is mentioned in BBC’s Plant Earth (in the desert episode) and this population only migrates through the northern most tip of Mali during part of the year. The other herd of Elephants, a much larger herd, lives in a protected wildlife refugee right outside of Gossi - hey that’s our site. Natalie, a Natural Resource Management Volunteer (NRM) living in Gossi with Bess and I, will be working with an Elephant conservation program running out of Gossi. Another Peace Corps friend, named Derrick, lives right by some Mopti cliffs on the far side of the same Elephant reserve. Derrick’s job as a PC volunteer is specifically to work with this herd of Elephants. There is also a female PC volunteer in southwestern Mali (Kaye Region) who’s job is specifically to work with a conservation group that protects a population of cliff dwelling Chimpanzees. Although this volunteer lives about as far away from Gossi as humanly possible without crossing a boarder (she lives on the Senegal boarder) I am hoping to make a voyage to see these cliff dwelling primates – at some point in time. Also in Mali, there is a rare species of river dwelling Manatee that live in the Niger River just shy of the Niger boarder. Other animals of interest might be: Hyenas, Jackals, Scorpions, Vipers, Cobras, and Rattlesnakes. These are the species more localized to Gossi – so one better travel on top of a camel I reckon… I’ll let you know what wildlife actually shows up…

Gossi

2007-08-29T14:32:00.000-04:00

Gossi

Gossi is a city of little cement but plenty of stick, mud and sun. There is no electricity or running water in Gossi, but radios are frequently herd admits the wail of a random donkey. Some of the wells have been replaced by water pumps but are used only after a small fee has been paid. Gossi is located right off the road between Mopti and Gao just inside the Timbuktu region of Mali.

Gossi is an anomaly… it is a city of nomadic people…

To understand Gossi one must grasp it as an ultimate Oasis in which the Toureg people sustain a large population of human life in what might otherwise be an uninhabitable place for a multitude of people. In other words… Gossi has water… a lake… that doesn’t disappear… even in the hottest part of the dry season. As a result, many of the nomadic Toureg migrate to Gossi during the hottest part of the dry season, and since so many nomads make this journey, many have established a more permanent residence which in the rainy season becomes abandoned, or left virtually unattended, because when the rains come the family and herds go back out to “Bruce” (meaning desert). When Natalie, Bess and I stayed at Natalie’s family’s concession, the only inhabitant living there was a 19 year old boy named Elhmedi, everyone else was out to Bruce.

After meditating for three days in the cool shade of the large hanger in Natalie’s concession, I reached the conclusion that “this concession is not always this empty, quite, and uneventful… it must be different to live walled in with the entire family and herd… God Help Natalie!!!”

In reality, Gossi is not really a city but an ongoing bustling of nomadic living - condensed. The Touregs have somehow and mysteriously constructed large mud walled concessions that separate and help them watch over their herds, and since they built these walls why not add a little mud house with a door and some windows in the far corner – but they don’t make much use of these “indoor” mud homes because the sun turns them into human ovens. Solution, store various things in the home (mud oven), maybe sleep there on a cool night, and continue the leisurely nomadic lifestyle spending most of day outside in the cool shade of a stick hanger or stick-domed-thing (no word for it in English, only an analogy: stick/animal-hide igloo-thing). Anyway, Gossi will be better described by the pictures below…

Gossi is a peninsula that projects north away from the road with the lake wrapping itself around all three sides. The tip of the peninsula has less water around it, the water is narrower, and seems more river-like because the far bank is a short paddle. The water (part of the lake) to the left of the peninsula (when standing on the road looking north) is the bulk of the water at Gossi, the water on the left is the most open and exposed of the Gossi lake, and a human eye can barely distinguish an individual tree on the far reaches of the lake. This is a good example of how things are measured in Tamashek, an eyes distance, the length a camel sprints before it tires, a man’s forearm… The water to the right of the peninsula (when standing on the road looking north) is also very vast, but marshy and has many trees making it more grove-like – a very different appearance entirely. At first we didn’t think the water on the right and on left of the peninsula actually connected, but it does. Maybe there is more water on the right side than left, but if so, I can’t tell you that yet because I can’t see across it like on the left side. And anyway, how could I measure it with Tamashek units – “Of course Watson, the lake is a biggiollion large cow bladder fulls”.

So the entire peninsula of Gossi is not all human inhabitants, the left and central portion of the peninsula is human dwelling (houses and streets), but the right side of the peninsula consists of gardens. Every permanent resident in Gossi is entitled to have at least a small plot in the large community garden, even if they just let it grow over, which seems the case for many people in Gossi and thus one of my projects will be to promote gardening. Gossi is by no means limited to the space on the peninsula, once crossing over the water at the tip, there is yet another large area of mud-city-Toureg-dwelling-place that then disperses into the desert… on this side of the lake there is a hospital run by a French Nun, a Sister, an M.D, she has lived there for 20 years bringing some level of conventional medicine to the nomads, she is currently teaching three of them, apprentices, who will then take the knowledge into the “Bruce” (meaning desert). I don’t know if she speaks Tamashek, a person can survive in Gossi if they know French, I would imagine she speaks some Tamashek after 20 years but she only spoke French when we met briefly. This French woman is the only white person to ever live in Gossi, the Toureg have named the Hospital and half the city on the northern side of the lake surrounding the Hospital after her – and after 20 years of service who can say otherwise.

O.K. I have not said much about the house Bess and I will live in. This is because the house we were going to live in had part of its roof collapse under the pressure of the monsoon rains. The remaining wooden beams were infested with termites, the bathroom walls were no higher than my nipples, and some of the windows had insufficient locks. One of the Chief men here in Gossi (Not the Chief) took us around the city looking for a new home, it came down to living with the Mayor or the Mason. There are still some repairs to made to our new home, so I will wait until we’re all settled in before I describe and show off our home for the next two years…

Population Gossi, some 20,000 people (mostly Toureg but many Songri), but nothing is two stories high there, and the city is very very spread out so there are always tress and green things – at least now during the rainy season.

Pictures of Gossi

2007-08-29T13:25:00.001-04:00

Pictures of Gossi

(The City Bess and I Will Live in for Two Years)

Natalies Home, in the corner of her families concession

(three rooms)

Large Hanger in Natalie's Concession
(The three of us lived and slept here during Site Visit)

Under the Hanger with Natalie's brother, and cousins

Exploring the Market in Gossi

(protected by our two young cousins)

Children in the Lake at Gossi

The Lake on the Left side of Gossi

The Stick Huts in Gossi - everywhere...
(Coexisting with the mud structures)

Natalie's Homologue, SiDi -like "C.D."

Our young Jedi/Toureg protectors

(they are one year apart in age 8 & 7)

Sunset in Gossi

(looking into the neighbors concession from Natalie's)

Our Hanger, Our new Friends

Iknet pouring hot tea in hanger

Gardens in Gossi
(My Homologue, Boubacar, his and my co-worker in back)

In the Gardens of Gossi
(Natalie is the only one who can talk to my Homologue - in French)

The Lake on the Right Side of Gossi
(water goes beyond those trees ahead)

Well in Gossi

Where Bess' project begins...

The Concession of my Homologue, Boubacar
(He grows many things well...)

Children Working in the Gardens of Gossi

Crossing the Lake at the Tip of the Peninsula

(right across from the hospital)

Crossing Over

The Other Side of Gossi

Others Crossing Over

Sun Rise Leaving Gossi on the Way to Gao

Sun Rise Leaving Gossi

Gossi

The Landscape of Mali

2007-08-29T13:18:00.000-04:00

The Landscape of Mali

After traveled from Bamako to Gao I now have a first hand experience of the landscapes and terrain that make up what is definitely a beautiful Mali.

In the south, Mali consists of lush tropical forests interrupted by many agricultural fields. Some of these southern areas dry up for part of the year but overall it is a green haven for life of all kinds. However, southern Mali is also well populated, so although there is plenty of natural vegetation to make it sustainable and beautiful, there are also many villages and cities throughout, this explains why most of the large wildlife has been exploited from the southern Mali despite its futility. It is also significant in that there is no large space; call it wilderness, in which life could go on without human impact. The only wilderness in Mali is the Sahara Desert.

I have little actual experience in the landscape of southern Mali seeing how my Home Stay was in the city of Bamako, but if you look at the pictures I took of the Bambera villages I visited on that one day – that’s the best I’ll have to show you for a while…

In the Middle, Mali consists of semi arid, somewhat savanna like, landscape known as the Mopti region. This region is renowned for having beautiful cliffs, between 100-800 feet high, and a striking contrast between a very green and beautiful rainy season, and a very brown and dry hot season. Mopti is also famous for the Dogon people who live in and bury their dead in the cliffs. The Dogons are Animists, so for them, God specifically lives in some of the sacred rocks in their area, and are thus not usable by people (especially outsiders) – a good conservation method for sure!!! As this region is the most beautiful, I have posted some pictures below… The pictures were taken while driving between Bamako and Gao. Overall the cliffs are about 3 to 4 hours southwest of Gossi, right off the main road between Mopti and Gao. I am sure Bess and I will trek through this region at some point in time, just as the tourists do, but perhaps we will visit our PC friends living in this region.

I am not going to describe much about northern Mali because this is where Bess and I will be living and over time the landscape will become very apparent through this blog. However, one should know that my site, Gossi, is in a part of the desert that has a very green and wet rainy season (See Pics from Gossi Site Description) and then for most of the year goes very brown in the dry season. It is also very flat. What you might imagine when you picture the Sahara Desert, that’s not Gossi, Gossi is still south of the Niger river, northern Mali, like the Kidal region – that’s where you will find fine grain powdery sand dunes going on forever…

Pictures of the Landscape of Mali

2007-08-29T12:02:00.000-04:00

Pictures of the Landscape of Mali

Lake in Mopti Region

Two Hours or so South of Gossi,

the stop for Derrick's Village

(Guy working with Elephants near Gossi)

Same stop, roadside village

Go between those cliffs and find Derrick's village

Mopti

(these next pictures are through the bus window)

These are a few of our fellow PC trainees in the Gao region

(Here we are in Mopti on what was a 25 hour bus ride

from Gao to Bamako - African Bus Ride!!!)

Birds in Mali

2007-08-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

Birds in Mali

The Birds are very beautiful here in Mali. Many are vibrant in color and have exotic characteristics. My photographs can only hint at the diversity of these creatures. Indeed, I have seen many birds with amazing colors and features that have been too elusive for me to capture with my camera. Some of them have sounded like monkeys from a distance; some made me pause in astonishment. I was developing a love for bird photography just before I came to Mali, so I will continue this hobby with some of my free time. My hope is to share with everyone back home the beauty of Malian birds. An understanding of Malian birds and their behavior will help me to understand the ecosystems in which I will be working, for example, birds help us identify the edible parts of plants, such as seeds. As well as identifying where insects might be hiding, or whether or not fish live in the water. Biodiversity is an important conservation effort here in Mali. The biodiversity of birds will help us measure the increase or decrease in natural resource efficiency.

The pictures I have displayed below were all taken within a hundred miles of Bamako. In my short site visit to Gossi, I was pleased to see many species of birds in what is definitely a desert environment, including at least one type of desert hawk, one type of water fowl (it’s the rainy season and Gossi has a big lake), one type of sandpiper, a second unidentifiable souring bird, and many smaller birds. I imagine that most of these birds will leave in the dry season. The local Toureg people have informed me that there are also Eagles around Gossi, as well as some other interesting birds I have to yet to laid eyes on. Most of the birds that I will discover and share with you will be localized around Gossi, since this my site. Unfortunately, I have not discovered any Bird Guides specific to Mali. The Peace Corps County Director told me that there are only bird guides specific to West Africa, and book stores are pretty much non-existent here in Mali – yeah no book stores!!! So if anyone discovers a Malian Bird Guide (Most likely in French), or any information about Malian birds online, please share the information with me… alden.jared@gmail.com Any information you can provide could help me in field work and this would be very much appreciated. Look forward to seeing more pictures of Malian Birds…

Pictures of Birds in Mali

2007-08-29T11:08:00.000-04:00

Pictures of Birds in Mali

Yes, I did take all of these Pictures...

An E-mail Home

2007-08-20T14:57:00.001-04:00

This is an E-mail I sent my Family...

So I seem to be learning things about Peace Corps and Mali as I go along...

Bess and I leave for site visit in Gossi on Wednesday, a 15 hour buss ride whereby the bus may break down to a point where we'd spend the night along the side of the road. One volunteer has a story about walking from a broken down bus to the next village, this volunteer walked miles with Malian woman carrying all sorts of large items on their head. In our trainee crash course in public transportation we've been taught how livestock and cattle here in Mali pee and poo on people from the roof through the window of the bus, so we won't take the window seat...

Bess and I just got our African cell phones and will be calling our parents within a day or so... We will post our Phone Numbers in case anyone in the U.S.A. wants to give us a called - there is cell phone reception in the city of Gossi.

Just so you all know... especially those coming to visit us in Mali... a Peace Corps vehicle can make it to Gossi in 6 to 8 hours (also good for emergencies) and in the past you could fly from Bamako to Gao (only 2 hours by bus to Gossi). I've heard a rumor that Peace Corps Mali gives a little extra money to volunteers living as far away as Gao (for travel expenses), and even enough money to buy flights to and from Bamako/Gao, but I've also heard that the airport is not operating right now.

Here are two quick stories from Home Stay...

Bess prayed with our host family, she shared a mat with the two youngest children, Akmad and Tinelbarka, then they all huddled together and prayed... I wasn't home when this happened (another testimony to Bess' deeper acceptance into the host family), I didn't see her until we met up at school and Boy was she glowing and radiating happiness.

The other story...

Tartit was flying Air France back from Europe and Muso, the ragged Muslim who always wears the same smelly black robes (see a picture of Muso on my blog), had a first class business ticket in the airplane... the flight attendants tried to move him to the back of the plane and were shocked to find he would not move and that he had the rightful ticket... he later asked the same flight attendants if he could see where the pilot was because he wanted to know if the plane had a wheel and peddles like a car... the flight attendants said no and got scared and thought he was a possible Terrorist, so Muso actually got up and tried to open the pilots door, which he did open, the flight attendants grabbed Muso and pulled him back... he told them he was looking for the bathroom...

Amano and Muso came home laughing and laughing, they thought this event was the funniest thing ever, then all of the family and relatives came over for the story, tea, and a good laugh... Boy was it funny... Muso is so far from a terrorist...

Muso has been asking me to give him a massage, because the children and even Mohammad (age 18) are all part of his personal massage team. They will work him for hours as a group... he pulled up his robes the other night... slapped his upper inner thigh... and kindly asked me to get started... so I did... he then immediately pointed to his crotch and said "Abo!!!!" meaning No in English... and so I gave him an excellent massage along side of brother Mohammad... I found a Tumor in his back the size of a golf ball... he wanted me to massage it...

Jared