Oh the month of April.

In this edition I’m going to tell you all about how life is SO hard for Malians.

Picture this: You have about 30 cousins. They ALL live in your concession. You are always naked. You are 3 years old. There is a toy in the yard. And by yard, I mean area between the houses that is mostly mud, sometimes poop and always dirty. The toy is a car. There is enough room for two naked derrières on it and there is a handle on the back so someone can push. You are on the front of the car manning the steering wheel. There are no front wheels, only back wheels. Another naked 3 year old is on the seat behind you and a bigger 5 or 6 year old is pushing the car. As there are no wheels, the car does not go anywhere. The front bumper jams into the ground and you are holding onto the steering wheel, steering nothing, trying to figure out why you are going down instead of forward. Even though you are screaming for dear life the 5 year old behind you does not stop pushing and finally the weight of the other 3 year old behind you forced you to submit to gravity and slam face first into what can only be described as a pile of shit. The worst is not over. There is a 3 year old lying on top of you trying to punch, kick, and otherwise injure the 5 year old who has yet to stop pushing the car forward but in the process cuts off your air supply, smashes your face deeper into the shit and completely ignores you. You think that maybe the 5 year old will lose interest and the other 3 year old will then get off you, but instead an 8 year old comes and shoves the 5 year old on top of the 3 year old and thus on top of you. In the jostling you are, at the very least, not face deep in shit any longer but you are under two other kids and a small car.

Okay, so I don’t specifically remember much of this month. It went by so fast that I hardly had time to notice it. What I did notice that I’ve been here for 9 months and I can hardly believe how close a year is. We had another IST at the training center in Bamako. This time the health volunteers’ homologues were invited so that we could do some training together. We did a miniature hearth and focused our efforts on understanding the basic principles of putting together a hearth from the beginning. This was great because I was having a hard time explaining to my homologue what one was and I really wanted to do one before rainy season comes (once rainy season is here the women are too busy with working in the fields to come to a hearth).
My homologue learned a lot and became enthralled with working with volunteers. I think she finally understood what my role was and what she was capable of. She and I had developed a lot of plans for Goumera that week and are working on carrying them out. At this point we’ve been a little stalled, but I’ll get to that later. Our plan is to do a large Moringa formation in November. But now, we’re going to make a big compost pit (dug and filled by the students at the school) and then about 6 weeks from now use the compost to fill pots for planting trees. Here we use plastic bags that we poke holes in for planting trees. After about 5 months the trees should be ready to plant so we’ll do a formation all about the benefits of Moringa, which are many, and sell a tree to everyone (for really cheap to pay for the plastic bags). In June we’ll plant the trees in the bags so that we won’t have to water them for two or three months (rainy season). It’s cheaper and easier and all around a good way to teach. Plus planting the trees right after rainy season is the perfect time because Moringa have a large tap root (big fat root that goes straight down and absorbs lots of water) and if they’re planted at the end of rainy season the roots will follow the water table as it descends and develop a stronger tree with healthier leaves.
I’ve also learned about fertilizer here. The best kind is stuff with high amounts of nitrogen. The high nitrogen is in animal poop and green leaves, but it’s also in human pee. A volunteer is working on a project where people pee into containers and store their pee, dilute it then fertilize their gardens or fields with it. It’s been really successful and it’s pretty funny. I’m going to start working on that in my village but first I need to learn how to talk about it in the local language and get some of the funnels made that you need in order to get the pee into the container at my local blacksmith’s. This goes along with Moringa and gardening too so hopefully the formations will connect with Malians.
In the meantime, my grant came through for the garden at the pre-school in Goumera so my village right now is trying to find the money and supplies for their contribution to the project and then we can begin building the well and move things along. The whole project cost just over $2,000, most of the money going to the cost of building the well. It’s about 2 meters in diameter with a wall of cement and a nice steal cover.
Unfortunately, I will not be spending much time in my village for the next couple of weeks, my roof was having a rough time but I wasn’t too worried because the holes that had developed were making it breezier. I just figured as long as my village fixed the holes before rainy I’d be all set, BUT, I was wrong. As unpredictable as always and as extreme as always the mango rains came in and nearly tore down my roofs altogether. Luckily not entirely and luckily I wasn’t there, or else I’d be covered in mud. The roof on each of my small huts needs to be completely replaced and I can’t sleep there until my village has finished it. So, in the meantime I’m going to study language in Kayes, work with the woman at the orphanage to plan a Moringa formation in one of the quartiers (quarters) in Kayes and fix the garden at the family planning association so I can start doing Moringa formations there.
I’m also working hard to fix my garden at my house in Kayes, so if you send anything send seeds. I need cilantro, catnip, citronella, berries (raspberries, especially), strawberries, pumpkins, beans, snap peas, tomatoes (I planted all the tomatoes I was sent and successfully killed them all, I’m working on it though), and green peppers. I’ve planted some stuff so I’ll take pictures of it when I get the chance. I’m waiting to plant a lot of things until rainy season because it is slightly cooler. It was 115° F yesterday and only getting hotter.
Now it is May and I’m already feeling the month flying by, my parents are coming to visit in less than 4 months! I’ve helped make some fabric for Peace Volunteers here and we’re getting it printed over the next two weeks. I’ll be in Bamako again at the beginning of June to get it all ready to distribute. Shortly after that a friend is coming to visit to do some work on teaching people to use mud stoves because they save energy and costs for firewood and they are safer (prevent kids from falling into the coals) and they use local materials to make them so they’re essentially free.
I’ll try to get an update in about a month about how my plans for May actually turned out. In the meantime, I hope you’re all doing well! It’s mango season in Mali and I’m about as happy as a volunteer can be!