One Last Post

I’m not sure if many of you know, or if anyone is still reading this, but I have been back from my African adventure for about 2 months now. I thought I’d write one more post on this thing and sort of bring the whole thing to an end.


I get a lot of questions when I see people out and about. The most common one has to be “How was it?” I’m not sure why people ask this and I never know how to answer it. It was great. It was terrible. I made friends. I lost friends. I met people and got to know them over two years and became closer with them than I am with people I’ve known 15 years. I’ve seen people at their absolute best and at their absolute worst. I lived in a place that in no way compares to anything I knew before I left. So it’s kind of hard to sum all this up into a compact 30 second answer. Any longer than that and I see people start to lose interest. It’s frustrating.

Another common one is “Was it hard coming back?” Or “Was it hard to readjust to America?” It was harder leaving Africa than it was coming back to America. I was gone two years, but America hasn’t changed THAT much. Honestly it wasn’t that hard getting back into the swing of things. In fact I could probably jump right back in where I left off if I wanted to. And I kind of notice people expect me to do that on some levels. I had a phone conversation with a friend of mine and she told me that it would’ve been very easy for her to just forget about the two years of her service and pick up life in America, but she didn’t want to do that. And I don’t think any of us really do. So I guess the hard part is finding the balance between your life in America and the life you had in Africa. Those two years happened. But you have to figure out where the balance is between where you are now and where and who you were there. And for me it feels like I have to let go of something in a way. I can tell you that leaving Mali was a lot harder than leaving the U.S. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why this is. My friend Natalie summed it up well in her blog. I hope she doesn’t mind if I steal a bit from her.



How many times in your life do you leave a place you love behind? I don’t mean places like a beautiful beach you visited on vacation or an overlook that you passed on a trip somewhere that you took out your camera and took lots of pictures of. I don’t even mean a city that you fell in love with on a trip, an exotic place unlike any you’d visited before and became one of your favorite places. I’m talking about the places that have hurt you, where you’ve fallen and almost couldn’t get up, but when you did you came to like yourself and the place that much more for challenging you; or a place where you have memories of joy and sadness, where you’ve cried your eyes out and also laughed with abandon until you almost cried as well.



I guess the thing I miss a lot about Mali is the feeling that your really living life. The highs are super high and the lows are super low. Here in America people get so caught up in mundane things like bills and work and errands and all the things that go into daily life here. It can become mundane if you’re not paying attention. There you work your ass off to make sure your family has enough to eat and if you live through each day and wake up the next morning you chalk that one up in the win column. And that’s about all there is to it. There’s not much worry about clothing for the Fall season, or celebrity gossip, or even the economy, but there is happiness in the village that I have yet to find here. It’s peaceful.

I also miss the volunteers I served with. We were a pretty close group and we made excuses TO see each other. Over here people have excuses NOT to see each other. “I have the kids” or “Got work tomorrow” are my two favorites. Americans get too busy living life that they forget to LIVE life.

So I guess will about wrap it up. I could go on longer, but e-mails and Facebook are probably calling your attention away. If you want to hear more I’m always ready to chat about Mali. It’s been a great two years. I’ve enjoyed reading your comments on this thing and they helped get me through during some bad times.

I still have trouble accepting things with my left hand and for some reason a sense of dread still comes over me when my cell phone dies. I still have to fight back the urge to bargain with cabbies and I’m trying to shower every day. I’ll get there, but I guess some habits stick with you.

I ni ce

K’an ben

High Five!!!

Views of My Home for the Last 2 Years

Saying Goodbye

I was sitting at site and thought of another funny story about Ghanaian English.

We were sitting at the bus station waiting for our car to eave and this little girl came up to us. Hand to God the cutest girl in all of Ghana. She was selling bags of water. I know that probably sounds weird but that is how they sell water here. Not in plastic bottles but in little plastic bags. You bite the corner off and suck on this sack of water until it’s all gone. Its fun.
Anyway she came and was trying to get us to buy her water so I asked her
"I'm not very thirsty, is your water good?"
She replied"I have the best wat-ter."

So I said
"The best! Wow you must have good water"

She answered
"My wat-ter is beautiful."

Good answer.

Ghana

I'm not sure if I ever explained "joking cousins" here, but if I have then this'll be a refresher course in Malian culture. In Mali, your last name is everything. And people know certain things about you by the last name you have. So if your last name is Coulibaly then you joke with everyone whose last names are different then yours. And this joking can get pretty intense. It isn't uncommon to here people call other people donkeys or a common one is "ah Diallo, your my slave." Back in the day the Fulani people used to capture other ethnicities and make them their slaves. So now when people joke with Peuhls they always say "Now your my slave!" I think I have talked about bean jokes in one of my first posts, and this joking cousins thing is where the bean jokes come in. So anyway...

Last year I spent all of hot season at my site and ever since I swore that this year I would get out of Mali and away from the heat. So, after 60 hours on buses, sleeping overnight on cement floors in bus stations like bums, broken down buses in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, and probably the worst case of B.O. I have ever had, myself and 3 other volunteers made it to Ghana.
And it was good.
Good food, great weather, the beach. All my maladies that have been pestering me in Mali cleared up almost immediately after the border. I think I saw Jesus there too.
Oh and they have good beer and more than 2 kinds.
Most of the trip was just hanging out by the beach and thats exactly what we wanted. No schedule or itinerary of things to see or dates we had to reach certain places. Which really, when travelling in Africa is the way you have to do it. If you come to this continent with a set plan and try and make it work on public transport then...
But we did make it to a few sites. In a town called Cape Coast there is a giant castle that was built in 1482 (I think. I forgot to write it down) and for long time it was a main hub for the slave trade.

One time a Mali volunteer went to this castle and actually ended up running into a Malian who had been living in Ghana. So they go on the tour together and find out they are joking cousins. The whole tour they are going back and forth raggin on each other until the Volunteer yells out "You're my slave!" to a Malian, in a slave castle. I think the joking stopped after that.


There is also a rain forest preserve in Ghana. These crazy Canadians built these little platforms around the trunks a some of the trees and then built bridges to connect them and now tourist can come and walk these bridges that zigzag through the canopy of the forest.

So I guess those were the highlights of the trip. After we headed back to Mali. Right after the border my sinuses clogged back up, my stomach hurt, wounds that had healed and were long gone came back. I think I saw Lucifer. Maybe I exaggerate, but there is a huge difference between Mali and Ghana. You forget just how poor Mali is until you see a plce like Ghana and what could be.
So after Ghana I had my COS (close of service) conference. This is where they tell you that you time is almost over and you need to start thinking about wrapping up projects, moving your stuff out, and they tell you all the paperwork you have to have filled before they will release you. Most of it was unnecessary, but it was fun and good to see people that I haven't seen in a long time. Some of the people there I hadn't seen since April of 2008. I also didn't realize how many people had gone home. We came in with 82 I think and are now down to 51.
At this conference most volunteers pick their dates to go home. They hung paper on the wall with all the dates and then just kind of set us loose. I was expecting fist fights and broken faces over those early dates, but surprisingly people were very well behaved and I think everyone got pretty much what they wanted.
And before i knew it, it was over. That is the last time my whole group will be together in the same place in Mali.
So (if anyone is reading this) you might be asking "When are you coming home Braxton?" And the answer is, I'm not. At least not yet. I asked for and was given a 6 month extension so I will be here through March 2010 and we'll go from there. The extension is open so if I want more than 6 months then I can stay longer, but I thought lets start at 6 and go from there.
I think you are all up to date now.
Hope life is good in Ameriki.
Take Care
BraxP.S. Ghanaian English is hilarious. My buddy Antony was on public transport and a Ghanaian opened up the window on the bus. As the window slid back it clipped the man's hand who was sitting behind him. The man raised his hand up and full of outrage he exclaimed "ah! You have wounded me."

Hard Times

I'll keep this short but I wanted to tell people back home whats been going on since I got back from America. On December 2nd there was a tragic accident here in the Mopti region and we lost one of our best. Cristina Nardone was a RPCV who had taken a job as the coordinator of the Global System Tourism Alliance (GSTA). She was visiting a village where she had helped fund the building of a water tower to help irrigate a medicinal garden. Cristina asked that the village fill it and as they were walking away it collapsed and killed her. Another woman, Brenda, suffered a broken leg and we later found out that after surgery infection set in and they had to amputate.

I'm at a loss at what else to say. It is especially tragic because she had finally made up her mind that it was time to go home and be with her family, but she agreed to stay until March so a replacement could be found. She had gone home for about a month as she transitioned from PC to her new job, but really her family had not seen her for the last 3 years. But she loved her work and believed what she was doing was making a real difference in peoples lives. It wasn't just a job for her and I think her project had the success it had because of her. She very easily could have done a lot of her work from behind a desk and sent others to do her field work like most NGO workers, but she loved going to these small villages and working with the people to help improve their lives.

I'll wrap it up before I get too sentimental. It has been a hard few weeks for us all here. Peace Corps is an enigma to me in that I've only known the people here for maybe 15 months, but some of my teammates have become closer to me than people I have known my whole life. Cristina was one of those people and I miss her.

She was the best of us all and you won't find anyone here who will argue that.

Farming

ToH

This is Dege. This is what I eat (drink) for lunch most days. Mmmmm...

This is Toh. This is what I eat every day at least once a day, but sometimes more.

Out With the Old, In With the New

I can't believe I haven't put anything on this since June. Sorry about that, but really nothing too exciting has happened in the past few months. I was able to get about 180 trees donated to my village so I spent a few weeks giving those out and helping people plant and protect them. I will head back down to site tomorrow and see how many are still alive. Finger crossed they were well protected and if rains didn't come then people remembered to water them. We should have a healthy number of survivors.

I am pretty much 1 year in. I can honestly say I can feel it. I think from talking with volunteers that around the 1 year mark you definitely don't have that skip in your step that you had in the beginning. I can say that the past few months have not been the easiest for me. Its been the rainy season which also means its time to go to the fields. Village life is fun during this time. They ask you why you aren't going to the fields to farm so you go. Then they don't think you are able to do anything so you try. Then they tell you you are doing it wrong and they make you sit down. Then they tell you you are tired and should go home, so you go home. Then they yell at you for not going to the fields. Fun.

Its also COS (Close of Service) time for the group that came in the year before me. Its really reallt weird watching these guys go. Some of them I got to know really well and others not so much, but it officially means that my grouped are the veterans now and in no way do I feel like I deserve that title.
The new volunteers will finish their training in about 1 week and then they will be installed in their sites. We get 8 newbs up here in the Mopti region. I guess the only thing that really makes me feel like I have been here for a year is watching them and their struggles. Its kinda funny, but you have to help them out where you can cause you were where they are a year ago and Mali is a tough place to call home. And we all want them to stick around.

So my hour is about up at the computer lab and I think I have you all up to date. I had my midservice medical and found that I have ameobas. So all those stomach issues and dysentary that I've been dealing with since last March, we finally found the cause. They gave me medicine for them, but its potent stuff, and I will probably just get them again, so for now I am going to try and make friends with them and let them hang out for awhile.
Hopefully everyone is doing well at home. I'm missin it in a bad way right now.

There's a storm a comin!!!

Elephants and Big Rocks

So I guess I haven't talked about my projects for awhile and some people have ben curious about whats going on with that. For my garden the village has given me a space thats About 50 by 50 meters with plans to expand if we ned more land. Now I have to talk to the well diggers so I can get a well dug inside the garden. This way they won't half to haul water from 1 KM away to water their veggies. I'm also doing a lot of work with trees and reforestation. I would like to help them plant more trees because they play a very important part in the lives of the villagers, but they are disappearing. So right now I am interested in finding tree species that can be planted in and around the farm ground, but wil be beneficial for the farmers even though it takes field space. I'm looking at trees that are nitrogen fixers and trees that have fruits and leaves that can be used in sauces or as medicine. Its fun, but my access to resources here is limited so its also slow and frustrating at times. So thats my "work."

Now for some fun stuff. I came into Sevare about a week ago to get out of the heat because I had developed heat rash all over my back and upper chest and down my arms. And I also wanted to pick up a few things that I needed. It wasn't really suppose to be a long trip and I had every intention or getting in and getting out and back to site. But after a few days a fellow volunteer came in and said he was meeting up with a bunch of people in Hombori to go rock climbing and said I was more than welcome. So I ended up spending 3 days climbing all over rocks. I have to admit its a fun hobby. Illinois needs rocks.

After climbing I went with another PCV and his brothers to a place called Boni

to see elephants. We hired a vehicle and went driving around in the bush for about 2 hours until we finally found them. Once we found them we had toget out of the car and kinda stalk up to him. It was good though, he was very cooperative and we got some good pictures of him. After awhile though he had enoughof us and started to flare his ears and stomp the ground. When they do that its time to go. So thats my most recent adventures. I had spent a lot of time at site so it was good to get away for awhile. Speak some English. In just a few weeks I will be a year into my service.

This should be a video of some women in my village pounding millet. They do this every day and it is kinda fun to watch. I'm not sure what I did, but I can't get it o play here. Hopefully you will have more luck. If not I'm sorry, but its not that long or interesting so its not a big loss.

God damn its hot.

So on Wednesdays there is a market in Koporona which is the next town over from me about 2 km away. I was all set to go and it was a really nice day out, the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky. It was hot out but this time of year its always hot out so I was ready for it. My homologue came over and we were going to walk to the market together. He noticed my solar charger was out and said I might want to put it inside because if it rains it will break. Now normally this time of year it doesn't rain, but they do come on occasion, they call them mango rains because they come when the mangoes are ripe. I guess. Thats what makes sense to me but most of the time I just make stuff up to sound cool. But anyway I was really impressed by my homologue because here it is, a beautiful day in Mali during the dry season with no indication that rain could possibly come and he just knows, he can feel something is coming. I was just so in awe that these Malians are so in touch with nature and they just know what the environment around them is doing. So I ask him "oh its going to rain?" and he looked at my and gave me a shrug that said "How the should I know."

The Hot Season

For those of you who didn't know I just spent some time in Senegal. a group of us went over to Dakar for what is known as W.A.I.S.T. That stands for the West Africa International Softball Tournament. Any expat, Government, Peace Corps, or NGO group working in West Africa can put a team together and compete, but mostly its just to have fun and hang out and meet people. It was good though. Dakar is a real city...with paved streets, and garbage collection, and good food. Its busy though, especially in certain parts of town. You can't walk 5 feet without someone trying to get you to buy some "authentic" Ray Bans or Dolce & Gabbana clothes. Makes it tough to really enjoy walking around those parts of the city. It was kinda nice to get outta there after a few days. We ended up renting a beach house a few hours outside of the city and that was really nice. Very sleepy little town where we all could just relax and shake off our crushing defeat by a team of high schoolers who looked liked they belonged on the chess team. But those kids could play.
It was a nice vacation.
On the way home we had typical Africa troubles. We rented this little minibus to take from the beach all the way to Kayes which is about 2 hours over the border. So we spend over 24 hours on this thing just to get to the border and they try and drop us off there. We make a bunch of noise and yell at them that they still have to take us another 2 hours. Well this draws a crowd and luckily they are on our side. So we end up at the police station and the police make them give us money back and we get new transport to Kaye. Well there are already 14 of us in a van built for 12, but being Africa they cram another 3 people in. So that was a fun 2 hours.
From Kayes we took a bus to Bamako and I have never been so glad to see that city. It felt familiar and felt like I was back on my own turf.
But the next morning I was outta Bamako by 8:00 on PC transport to head back to Sevare then on to Bandiagara and finally my site. So it was a lot of traveling in a few days.
It was good to get back to site. It feels like between holiday traveling, training in Bamako, and W.A.S.T. I hadn't been spending much time there.
But coming back to site I found out what this hot season is all about. I had been back there 2 weeks and every day topped out at about 120 degrees. And this isn't the worst of it. We're just getting started.
But aside from the heat, village was good. I met a guy who lives in the next own over. He's an English teacher down in Korro and he would like me to ride down with him soon and talk to his class in English about America. He said he'd be more than willing to help me learn French and Dogon too so that is very exciting. Learning those two languages will be a lot easier if I have someone who speaks English teaching me. So that's been about it.
I was originally headed into Bandiagara and what I usually do is sit by the road until transport comes, I ask if they are going to Bandiagara, we work out the price and I'm on my way. This time a car came I asked we worked out a price and I was on my way, but 3 hours later we were somewhere way out in the bush. There are only a few ways to get to Bandiagara from my site and I know them all pretty well and this was not one of them. So we reach a main road and I ask what town it is. They tell me Somodugu and I get kinda pissed. Thats about 50 k on the wrong side of Sevare. So I tell the driver I'm gonna get off here and he asks me,"oh you're not going to Bandiagara anymore." To which I reply, "M%$#@& F%$#@$ You're not going to Bandiagara! Where the hell are you taking me? Bamako?"
So I caught a bus and here I am in Sevare and not Bandiagara. But it all worked because people had come up for another volunteers birthday so we had fun. And I got to see the new restaurant in town that sells BURGERS. that's right. I now have access to genuine delicious hamburgers among other things.

So that's about it for now. I think I have Amoebas, but that's pretty gross so I won't go into details.
I'm not sure if this is the most interesting post, but I'm kinda passed the honeymoon stage and so things are just day to day stuff for me now and things that seemed really different and interesting 7 months ago are pretty tame. Mostly I'm just hanging out getting some work started on a few projects and chit chattin with the guys in village or reading or something. Nothin too exciting. And the stuf that is exciting I can't put on here because if they read it they will send me home ;) Big Brother is everywhere.

So Hope everyone made it through the winter o.k. I heard it was a rough one.
Peace (Corps)
Brax

Dogon Hike

Dogon Hike

Back To Where It All Began

If Mali was OZ then Bamako would be the Emerald City... with garbage and donkeys. Although I don't really like the city, you can buy amazing things here. Things like a cheeseburger from McCroakman's (not McDonalds but they still call it a Big Mac) or fried chicken that tastes like KFC.
I'm down here because after 3 months at site they call the new volunteers back for their IST (In Service Training). We're basically learning the technical skills we will need to get our projects going. I kinda thought it would be a waste of time, but I am learning things that can be implemented in my village. Whats even better though is seeing all the people I haven't seen in 3 months and exchange stories from site. The girls all look about the same as I remember, but most of the guys have long hair and are rockin some sort of facial hair. You can kinda tell which of us live in cities and which of us live in the bush by our appearance. I have gotten back most of the weight I lost too, which is good.
Now is definitely the time to be in Mali. The days stay coolish and the nights I have to wear long sleeves and a sweatshirt. There are very few mosquitoes and the flies aren't even too bad.

Its very surreal to be back at Tubani So. 3 months ago we were are just nervous trainees about to go out on some kind of adventure with really no idea what to expect. I remember Chris and I got installed on the same day. Chris is the closest volunteer to me. Its about 50K to his village, but we installed him first and then went on to my site. I just remember all his things were unloaded and we were about ready to take off and it finally really hit him and he got this look on his face like, "HOLY SH@$!!! This is it. You guys are really just going to leave me here!!!" I imagine a lot of us had that look. But 3 months later we're ll back (most of us) with so many stories and experiences. 3 months went by so fast, but at the same time it feels like its been 10 years since I left here.


There's really not too much to report right now, but I have a lot of pictures from dogon country so I will try to get those up by the end of the week.


I can't remember if I ever explained how money works here. So if I did just ignre this part, but if not its an interesting system. As it was explained to me, when the french came their lowest denomination was the 5 Franc. Of course the Malians did really know what was going on so they just called the 5 franc 1. So now whenever you get a price in Bambara you have to multiply by 5. For example if you are in the market and someone wants CFA 100 for something then you pay him CFA 500.
If they say transport somewhere cost CFA 500 then you pay CFA 2500. So when I get home and anyone needs something divided by or multiplied by 5, you just come find me and I got ya covered.

Peace.