in my blog posting,
making it real for y’all, i briefly mentioned some of the more wider-ranging issues in mali.
first, let’s start off with the basics in mali. mali happens to be about the fourth poorest country in the world, depending on selected economic factors. in 2005, mali was voted number one by the world health organization as the worst place in the entire world to be a mother. the average life-expectancy is less than 50 years for both men and women. all this and mali is one of the most stable democracies in the west african region.
mali is a land-locked country with very poor roads, transportation, and an overall bad infrastructure. most people who live en brousse, or french for in the bush, do not have running water, electricity, or even basic sanitation. i have referred before to the use of negens, or outhouses. usually made of concrete with a well below it, these are used not only for the evacuation of bodily fluids and solids, but also for the shower with a bucket of warm water and a cup. some of my fellow pcv’s are fortunate enough to have two separate negens, one in which to bathe, the other to do number one and two. still, it is rare.
even potable water can be a problem. for instance, in sombo, i have access to two pumps with reasonably clean water. in kangaba, there are robinets, or french for tap water, located every few blocks or so. i know in some villages, there are only wells available, and in that instance, a person would have to treat the well-water even before drinking it. this is a very long process which includes bleaching, boiling, and letting the water set for at least 30 minutes before use. one can get amoebic dysentery and giardia from drinking untreated well-water.
food. mali survives on subsistence agriculture. for the cash crops grown here: cotton, corn, millet, peanuts, sorghum, rice, most malian men employ petroleum-based fertilizers and herbicides to grow enough food for their family in one year. right now during the rainy season, those cash crops are in the ground and growing. now, farmers are harvesting their first quick-growth corns. the rest of the crops will be harvested in the next few months. as for vegetables like tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, these will be grown in either family or community gardens beginning around the month november. this is the beginning of the dry season and lasts until the month of june. usually women take up the smaller-scale cultivation of these crops. they sometimes use the left-over fertilizers and herbicides the men bought for the field crops, but more often they use compost. women use the vegetables in their sauces and sell whatever is left at the market. it is a form of small-income generation here.
mali gets what its roads can handle to import from the coastal countries of sengal, guinea, etc. cote d’ivoire was a main exporting country to mali, but since that county has gone to h*ll, that trading partner was pretty much eliminated, at least for the time being. and given the political torpor of togo, another major partner, mali is pretty much cut off from primary ports thereby limiting the amount and quality of goods into and out of the country.
there is no organic food co-op down the street. most global food products available in-country are from the devil-themselves’ companies of coke and nestle. what’s a girl to do when all that is available at the local butiki, or bambara for store, for coffee is instant nescafe? i hate having to drink it, but is it really better to ask family and friends to send me a pound of organic, shade-grown, fair-trade coffee every two weeks? no, i think not. it’s unrealistic. it’s just as unrealistic as placing the values my co-op goin’, organic, free-range meat eatin’, fair trade coffee drinkin’ self on a system that’s not american when more women die in child-birth than by natural causes and people fight daily to put food in their family’s bellies.
given these circumstances in which i find myself, the harsh reality of things, i don’t think it’s so bad to have an ice-cold coke once in a while. when you’re here, and you miss home, it’s a beautiful thing to take a break and taste a little of america.
it is quite different here.
the-read-what-i-have-read-book-list!Nine Stories: J.D. Salinger. actually, i am in the middle of it now. i’ll let you know when i am done.
listen-to-what-I-love-listening-to-list!Danger Mouse: The Grey Album. soooo gooood. and I know it is soooo last year and i don’t care.
Peace. Chance.
ps. for those who want to leave comments, go ahead, you'll just have to do word verification to post it. i think i have been getting comment spam, which is really f-ing weird.
