So it has officially been a year since I updated this blog.
I think it is important for updating everyone and would be great to write
regularly but it has always gotten pushed to the side with other work. Now
there is so much to say but I don’t think people would want to read a ten-page
blog but I will make an attempt to summarize this past year and then hopefully
update again a few times before I return to the states at the end of
November/beginning of December.
So, much has happened since last year. My last entry was
about my transition to Bamako for my third year in the Peace Corps as a PC
Volunteer Leader and working with a women’s water and sanitation cooperative. I
certainly didn’t anticipate the events that occurred and sometimes still don’t
believe what happened. There have been five major events of this past year that
I will attempt to summarize below: 1) my five week home leave in December, 2)
my Father’s visit to Mali in February, 3) the Coup d’Etat in Mali and
subsequent evacuation of PCVs in Mali, 4) a five week French immersion in Nice,
and 5) my return to Mali to finish research for my dissertation.
1. HOME LEAVE
As part of extending for a third year, PC grants you a
month, paid home leave which I took during December to be home again for the
holidays. The first two weeks I spent back in Tampa where I kept busy meeting
with my adviser and committee members. I successfully defended my dissertation
proposal, becoming a doctorate candidate! The other three weeks I spent with
family and friends mostly, it seems, eating (gained another 10 lbs like last
year…). It was great being home and I have found being so far away has made me
value family that much more.
2. FATHER’S VISIT
I was lucky to have my Dad visit Mali for two weeks in
February. This included a few days in Bamako in the beginning and end with a
visit to the PC office and women’s cooperative. His visit happened to coincide
with his birthday so we had a cake at the women’s cooperative and everyone sang
him Happy Birthday in French.
The second day we rented a taxi for the day and visited my
village where I had spent my first two years. The villagers gave my Dad a grand
welcoming. The women’s association I worked with on the garden project
presented with a painted calabash and morroca as well as a chicken. Most all
the village showed up at the public square and there was dancing and drumming.
We only could spend a few hours before heading back to Bamako before dark but
everyone wanted to take pictures with my Dad and we gave him a tour of the
village as well. The women in Bamako had given him the name Sedouba and ofcourse
his last name would be Konare as most everyone in my village and my own Malian
name. Though my Dad could not speak a word of Bambara and even had trouble with
his new name, we made do with my translations and lots of laughter. By the end we had three chickens and had
presented the chief of the village with a sheep.
The next day we had to leave well before sunrise to go to
Segou (a region further north in Mali) for the music festival. We spent several
days enjoying the festival. All the hotels had been booked a year in advance
but I had managed to book a room on a boat with four small bunks though lacking
hot water and a western toilet. My Dad didn’t let that hamper his fun and we
made sure to make a daily trip to the hotel’s pool and enjoy the festival.
At the conclusion of the festival we headed yet further
north up to Dogon country in the Mopti region of Mali. There we did a three
day, two night hike with a guide and a group of Senegal volunteers. My Dad held
his own and often was ahead of over half a dozen twenty somethings which
involved a lot of climbing on rough terrain.
The days up in Dogon flew by much like the whole trip and
then we found ourselves on a 12 hour bus ride, returning to Bamako. My Dad was
excited for a hamburger and a real toilet by then. We spent the last two nights
in a hotel in Bamako with air conditioning and a pool which was a nice end to
my Dad’s African Adventure. My Dad said he wants to come back for the music
festival and Dogon festival some years later.
3. COUP d’ETAT
Fortunately and unfortunately, my Dad’s trip occurred before
March 22nd when there was a Coup d’Etat where the military overthrew
the former Malian president, Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT). Now his visit would
not be possible. Just days after the Coup d’Etat, rebels took over three
regional capitals in Mali (Timbuktu, Kidal, and Gao) dividing the country in
two. Visiting Dogon country is out of the question now.
To say we (myself, PCVs, staff, and Malians) never saw this
coming is an understatement. Even writing this now, I find it unbelievable.
Before the Coup, there had been protests against ATT’s handle of the situation
up-north but elections were scheduled in April; ATT had served two terms and
was expected to step down.
The day of the Coup was like any other in Bamako. I
had gone to the women’s cooperative that morning but then we received a text
from the embassy like similar ones before that there would be protests and to
stay away from the presidential palace. Then around midday the embassy sent a
message that there was gunfire around the presidential palace and to return
home. That night, the military took over and ATT went into hiding. For five
days I was told to stay put by myself in my apartment in Bamako. Each night and
sporadically throughout the day, I would hear gunfire sometimes very close.
Needless to say, not a very pleasant time.
After the Coup, things were quite a blur and I won’t go into
all the political details but when the military refused to give back power,
ECOWAS threatened and instituted sanctions. Gas prices sky rocketed and getting
money from banks became near impossible which made operations for PC very
difficult. They had consolidated volunteers to regional capitals. We were all
put into a state of waiting. The volunteers in the Mopti region had been
brought down to the PC training center and I was there when our Country
Director told them they would have to take interrupted service as the region
was no longer safe and with the situation for the rest of the country, unsure,
they could not be placed in other places in the country. It was heart breaking
news and I tried to offer comfort, only a few days later I found myself in
their shoes when we received an e-mail at night from the Country Director; all
PCVs in Mali would be evacuated. Just a few days earlier some volunteers had
played an April fools day joke on me when I had woken up that we were being
evacuated. That joke didn’t seem as funny anymore. I immediately called my
family and my advisor to tell them the news.
Packing up my apartment not knowing if/when I was coming
back was one of the hardest parts. I was just starting to feel at home in
Bamako, it had been a more difficult transition than I expected. Of course, the
hardest was saying good bye to the women at the cooperative and me and my old
site mate rented a taxi to break the news to our villages. It also didn’t help
when I closed my bank account, the woman asked “So when things get tough, you
all (westerns) just run?” I felt really bad for my replacement who had not been
able to stay a year in Mali and had just started a WATSAN project and her
Bambara was getting good. It is hard to say who the evacuation was hardest on
but it was really difficult for the volunteers that had just completed training
or had not quite served a year. At least myself and the training class after
mine had pretty much completed our service.
Shortly after news of the evacuation, a plane was chartered
and we all left for Accra, Ghana for a week long transition conference. The conference was packed with sessions and
well organized. It did help that it was held at a five star hotel with a
gorgeous pool. PC had done this before and staff was flown in from the states
some even that had experienced an evacuation when they were volunteers.
Nevertheless, things were hectic and everyone was in different stages of grief.
A week is also short period of time to close out all the paperwork for 180
people. A close of service ceremony was held on April 14th where I
officially became an RPCV.
Before and during the conference I had kept myself so busy
organizing things along with the other training class “chiefs” from organizing
t-shirt orders and the final dance to helping staff collect paperwork,
etc. I had not been able to give much
time to think let alone plan my next steps. I know I had to go back to Mali to
finish my research for my doctorate though the when part was a bit difficult
(now? Two weeks? Two months? A year). Two years of data collection is a lot to
lose and plus I wasn’t ready to leave Mali.
I stayed another week in Ghana in the house of a PC staff
member who had married a Malian. Her housekeeper, husband, and brother all
spoke Bambara so it really helped with the transition. I took the week reading
Malian news updates and talking to people in Mali to gauge the situation.
4. FRENCH IMMERSION
In the end I decided to take at least a month to let the
situation calm down but in the mean time I would improve my French in France. I
enrolled in a five week intensive course with Alliance Franciase (4 hours a
day, five days a week) in the South of France, Nice. Nice was amazing and
breathtaking. It is on the French Riveria where the sea is a beautiful blue. I
went running most every day on the promenade near the coast. I made friends in
my class from all parts of the world: the US, Malaysia, Spain, Italy, and
Brazil and visited other cities along the French Riveria (Monaco, Ville France,
St. Tropez, Cannes). I ate a lot of great food and drank a lot of good wine and
was amazed by the cheese, wine and yogurt isles in the supermarkets.
Though Nice was a great experience, and really helped with
my French, I was still getting over the shock of the evacuation and worried
about the situation in Mali and anxious to get back. I made good friends with
classmates but found French people much less patient and welcoming than Malians
which doesn’t facilitate learning a new language as well. In the final days of
my last week of class I made the plunge and bought a ticket back to Mali for
that weekend. Things had seemed to calm down and a transition government was in
place. Though I was still not 100% sure it was the right decision, it was good
to have at least made one.
5. RETURN TO MALI
On June 2nd, I returned to Mali late at night and
had a friend meet me at the airport. I wasn’t quite ready to go back to my
apartment. After 5 weeks including many dust storms, I knew it would be a mess
so I stayed at a hostel I had stayed at before as a volunteer, The Sleeping
Camel. Through the first two days, I didn’t get out much but everything seemed
normal if maybe a little quieter especially at the Camel and restaurants. On the
third day, I visited the PC office and it was great to see all the staff and
then I visited the women’s cooperative. It felt like no time had passed though
it had been almost two months since we had been evacuated.
Going back to village was even more of a rush and not a
shock like I was expecting after living in the luxury of Nice with its rich
French foods to fetching water from a well and no electricity. I fell back into
my normal routines and soon checked to see if the Tippy Tap hand washing
stations were still there. It felt like coming home and I felt happier, more
relaxed than in France. It was really inspiring to see that Zeala had finished
the project my replacement had started (including three top well repairs, over
30 soak pits and 30 latrines) and the Shea cooperative had built a house from
their own funds to store their soap making materials in.
Now it has been two and a half months since I have returned
to Mali as just a researcher. Things are very much the same and very much
different. I really miss the support of volunteers and PC. You ofcourse don’t
realize how good you had it until it is gone. I get very few text messages let
alone phone calls now from volunteers asking questions or just random musings
of their day. Ofcourse the first weeks when I was back, I got a bad rash and
cold and wished I could call Dr. Dawn (the PC Medical Officer). The first
several market days I walked, rode on someone’s lap in the front of a speeding
van, and rode on the back of a motorcycle several times. I really missed our PC
trek bikes and everyone kept asking where my bike went. I had always told them
it wasn’t mine. A friend let me borrow his bike which doesn’t have brakes, the
chain often falls off, and I think riding with the bar up my butt would be more
comfortable than the seat they made out of wire and cloth. Nevertheless, I am
thankful and it is better than not having a bike at all.
Even now I get
questions of when Jeneba (the volunteer that replaced me) is coming back and I
have to explain for the hundredth time that she probably isn’t coming back and
no, I don’t know when another volunteer will come as PC has yet again pushed
back the arrival of another training class until March. Though the situation in
the south of Mali has stabilized, the North is still in the hands of the rebels
and there has been little progress made to take it back.
I am keeping very busy with my research on the hand washing
stations and shea butter. I guess a positive from this whole situation is I
have really been able to focus on my research as before I had many
responsibilities with PC. I have been weighing the shea nuts in different
stages of the process and hopefully will have a total amount of nuts collected
and butter made in the entire village. Also, I have been conducting ethnographic
interviews and surveys in respect to Shea butter and its role and importance
during the hungry season for an anthropological methods course I took as a
directed study. Data collection for my
third topic of research, latrine usage at schools, should start in October at
the beginning of the school year.
Hopefully, if all goes to plan (though I’ve learned things
can turn out quite different), I should be back in the states at the end of
November/early December. I may go to USF for a few weeks to work on research
and make sure I have a place to live and that I am registered for classes in
the Spring. It will be nice to be back in the US for a significant period of
time and in the same country as my family. Hoping Allah will see me safely
through the rest of my time in Mali and then home and also pray for a solution
to the crisis Mali is facing and soon. Thank you to all my family and friends
that have supported and continue to support me through this transition.
