Seriously Kids, a Real Posting.
I am sitting here in the CLIC center here in Kangaba, Mali. It is a Sunday. Normally the center is closed but due to an arrangement between the center and PCV's here in the southern Koulikoro region, I can come here and use the internet for, uhm, free. I have spent more time in front of a computer today than I have since B.P.C. or before Peace Corps.
Kangaba is the capital of the sub-region, and the sub-region's namesake, of the region of Koulikoro. Sombo, my village is only 35 kilometers away, not a shabby biking-distance at all.
Obviously Kangaba has phone and electricity service, otherwise this wouldn't be happening, this fine play between human and machine. It makes me feel less isolated from the outside world and facilitates much needed communication. Yes. Oh yeah, I can get an ice-cold coke when I come here. Life is grand, indeed.
It has been about a month since swear-in and my installation at Sombo. Actually, I moved to Sombo, but Peace Corps Speak sneaks in and when it comes to this, I feel like a brand-new mp3 player being 'installed' in a pea-green colored, APC Gremlin rust-bucket when it's referred to as an 'installation'. Best Buy anyone, anyone? Did I go too far?
At any rate, Sombo is a village of around 500 people. There, I have found a very motivated community wanting to improve their quality of life. There are not, of course, electricity and running water. The village does have two water pumps for clean drinking water, a women's association called Association Benso, a women's revoloving loan program, and a community garden. It's quite a list of assets if you ask me.
I will primarily work with Association Benso and the community garden, both of which the former PCV, Ben, started during his 2 year tenure. Association Benso means 'to get along' in Bambara/Malinke. From the start, one can sense it's based on communication, consensus, and cooperation.
To digress a little bit, am I so ever happy that Pre-Service Training (PST) is over. Nine and a half weeks of being shuffled between my host-village of Sinsina and the training site of Tubaniso wore me down. Several culminating events of my own mental and physical stress, brought me to tears. I hate to admit it but I did say back in the states, I quote: "I want my ass-kicked in training," and surely did that happen. Prepared though as I was, it was still the toughest weeks I have ever experienced in my life.
Training was based on language, technical, medical, and safety aspects. Learning these things 8 to 9 hours a day doesn't kill you. It's the loss of self-determination and free-will, free-time to rest or relax, the sudden change in climate, diet, and sanitary conditions that break you down. By the time swear-in and installation arrived, I was barely holding it together through the fatigue from bacterial infections, the hot season, and the rigors of training.
And only a month into my PCV experience can i say, I quote: "Man, did I hate training." Not completely did I loathe it, it's just a bitter-sweet love-hate thing. A necessary-evil to set the way for the next 2 years of working and living.
Back to Sombo. I have my own yard out in the middle of what will be corn or cotton fields come the rainy season (June-September). A former-former PCV planted the yard with perennial flowers. In the rainy season, they will fill up the yard with colorful blasts of magenta, orange, and yellow. I have also a hangar, or Gwa in bambara, to have shade under the sun. During the hot season thus far, I have slept under my gua, on a cot, under a mosquito net. I spend a lot of time there. Then there are two circular T.R.A.D.'s, thatched-roof adobe-dwellings. With the yard and the trads it's very spacious. I mostly store my meager belongs inside. And I cannot forget to mention my negen, or open-aired, cement 'room' with a hole in the ground. It serves as my outhouse and shower. It's alarming and sensible to bathe and evacuate bodily solids/fluids in the same place. Shower shoes are a must! (Info for those of you who may visit me in the future and to decrease any disgust you may feel at the idea of this...)
Have I mentioned yet that my first PST training at Tubaniso was how to use the negen and sullidaga? Sullidaga is a plastic tea-kettle looking thing that's filled with water and used to wash your underside, since toilet paper is truly a western, developed nation kind of concept. F.Y.I. I still use t.p...
Yes, late that hot January night when we arrived at our training site outside of Bamako, a PCV named Rhia held a mock-demonstration on how to squat and how to use the sullidaga during evacuation. Having been here for almost 2 years, all ears were open and receptive to a master-negen user that was Rhia. Thanks Rhia for imparting on us, lowly newby PCT's, the wise ways of the negen.
Books I have read:
Mathilda by Roald Dahl-french version to brush up.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver-excellent read for you who want a peak into African life.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown-I admit to having a tendency to digging on conspiracy theories. One irony was that just after I finished it, the Pope died, and I knew what the hell conclave was!
Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates-a novella that's disturbing yet one of the best examples of poetic justice.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll-no explanation needed.
Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier by Hampton Sides-wonderful collection of 30 non-fiction stories from differing perspectives of American culture. Published in 2004, there's a section devoted to our current-era of post September 11th.
Let's just say I inherited a collection of books from the former PCV, around 200 books that is.
Kangaba is the capital of the sub-region, and the sub-region's namesake, of the region of Koulikoro. Sombo, my village is only 35 kilometers away, not a shabby biking-distance at all.
Obviously Kangaba has phone and electricity service, otherwise this wouldn't be happening, this fine play between human and machine. It makes me feel less isolated from the outside world and facilitates much needed communication. Yes. Oh yeah, I can get an ice-cold coke when I come here. Life is grand, indeed.
It has been about a month since swear-in and my installation at Sombo. Actually, I moved to Sombo, but Peace Corps Speak sneaks in and when it comes to this, I feel like a brand-new mp3 player being 'installed' in a pea-green colored, APC Gremlin rust-bucket when it's referred to as an 'installation'. Best Buy anyone, anyone? Did I go too far?
At any rate, Sombo is a village of around 500 people. There, I have found a very motivated community wanting to improve their quality of life. There are not, of course, electricity and running water. The village does have two water pumps for clean drinking water, a women's association called Association Benso, a women's revoloving loan program, and a community garden. It's quite a list of assets if you ask me.
I will primarily work with Association Benso and the community garden, both of which the former PCV, Ben, started during his 2 year tenure. Association Benso means 'to get along' in Bambara/Malinke. From the start, one can sense it's based on communication, consensus, and cooperation.
To digress a little bit, am I so ever happy that Pre-Service Training (PST) is over. Nine and a half weeks of being shuffled between my host-village of Sinsina and the training site of Tubaniso wore me down. Several culminating events of my own mental and physical stress, brought me to tears. I hate to admit it but I did say back in the states, I quote: "I want my ass-kicked in training," and surely did that happen. Prepared though as I was, it was still the toughest weeks I have ever experienced in my life.
Training was based on language, technical, medical, and safety aspects. Learning these things 8 to 9 hours a day doesn't kill you. It's the loss of self-determination and free-will, free-time to rest or relax, the sudden change in climate, diet, and sanitary conditions that break you down. By the time swear-in and installation arrived, I was barely holding it together through the fatigue from bacterial infections, the hot season, and the rigors of training.
And only a month into my PCV experience can i say, I quote: "Man, did I hate training." Not completely did I loathe it, it's just a bitter-sweet love-hate thing. A necessary-evil to set the way for the next 2 years of working and living.
Back to Sombo. I have my own yard out in the middle of what will be corn or cotton fields come the rainy season (June-September). A former-former PCV planted the yard with perennial flowers. In the rainy season, they will fill up the yard with colorful blasts of magenta, orange, and yellow. I have also a hangar, or Gwa in bambara, to have shade under the sun. During the hot season thus far, I have slept under my gua, on a cot, under a mosquito net. I spend a lot of time there. Then there are two circular T.R.A.D.'s, thatched-roof adobe-dwellings. With the yard and the trads it's very spacious. I mostly store my meager belongs inside. And I cannot forget to mention my negen, or open-aired, cement 'room' with a hole in the ground. It serves as my outhouse and shower. It's alarming and sensible to bathe and evacuate bodily solids/fluids in the same place. Shower shoes are a must! (Info for those of you who may visit me in the future and to decrease any disgust you may feel at the idea of this...)
Have I mentioned yet that my first PST training at Tubaniso was how to use the negen and sullidaga? Sullidaga is a plastic tea-kettle looking thing that's filled with water and used to wash your underside, since toilet paper is truly a western, developed nation kind of concept. F.Y.I. I still use t.p...
Yes, late that hot January night when we arrived at our training site outside of Bamako, a PCV named Rhia held a mock-demonstration on how to squat and how to use the sullidaga during evacuation. Having been here for almost 2 years, all ears were open and receptive to a master-negen user that was Rhia. Thanks Rhia for imparting on us, lowly newby PCT's, the wise ways of the negen.
Books I have read:
Mathilda by Roald Dahl-french version to brush up.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver-excellent read for you who want a peak into African life.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown-I admit to having a tendency to digging on conspiracy theories. One irony was that just after I finished it, the Pope died, and I knew what the hell conclave was!
Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates-a novella that's disturbing yet one of the best examples of poetic justice.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll-no explanation needed.
Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier by Hampton Sides-wonderful collection of 30 non-fiction stories from differing perspectives of American culture. Published in 2004, there's a section devoted to our current-era of post September 11th.
Let's just say I inherited a collection of books from the former PCV, around 200 books that is.
posted by chance @ 5:45 PM
1 comments
