Amy in Africa: Mangos...notebooks... and gardens

Overlooking the Niger in Segou around sunset. Just beautiful!

Since my last post I have started working in my village; finally. First, I took two women to a shea butter formation at another volunteers village. There were over seventy women there to learn good techniques to produce good shea butter. They also learned about establishing women’s associations and money making opportunities. It was amazing to see the women work together and make friends with each other. Usually women don’t get the opportunity to venture out of their villages and they especially don’t get the chance to learn. Their passion and enthusausim was unbeleiveable.

My mom, May, was so excited about going, about a week before, she asked me if she would get a notebook so she could take notes. I was like, yea, of course, you’ll get a notebook. (That was the least I could do was make sure she had a notebook and a pen.) It then it occurred to me, can she write? I had never seen her write before. But then again there isn’t much writing being done in village, there aren’t bills to pay or shopping lists to make.

Here are the two ladies from my village, Bintu (green) and my mom Marium and the baby Mazaruna... she is a little cute (Its a big joke that say that she is only alittle cute because my dad thinks shes not soo cute) and of course, Jeneba and I.

So a week
later at the formation, I made sure the two women I brought had notebooks and pens, and by golly, she could write in Arabic. Surprise! I asked her about it and she said she could write donni dooni, little little.

During this same time as the formation I had fat lips. Kid you not, it looked as though I had a collagen injections. I found out that I can’t eat mangoes and I have an allergic reaction to the peel. For an entire week, I had these fat lips. After popping numerous benedryl , I decided something had to be done. Coincidentally, my friend Jeneba’s (another volunteer) host father is traditional medicinal healer….so why not make a visit to him…..
So the visit went something like this….

We went and greeted him. And then asked him for some medicine after explaining the situation and him looking at my giant lips. Sure, I have medicine for you he said. So we went into his house and he pulled out this bad of black power. I was quite sure what I was expecting, but I don’t think it was that. So he starts rubbing this charcoal like substance on my lips, while at the same time telling Jeneba that this what the same stuff he has given to her to put on her cat’s eyes when it was injured. We started laughing so hard, we were almost in tears. I had no idea what was going on… We left the house laughing so hard, and the women outside starting laughing. They were like, Aminata cover your head so we did… I still don’t know if the medicine worked… I guess my lips aren’t fat anymore and I would like to think it worked….

After leaving the formation we went to Tubaniso (PC training center) for more technical training for a week and project planning strategies.

It was so nice to get to see everyone. I hadn’t seen many of the other volunteers since training in January. At the same time it was a bitter-sweet feeling because it was our last formal training session all together, until our COS conference before we leave Mali next summer. So many of these folks, I might not see for a while, especially the ones real far away. Mali is huge and difficult to travel, if I haven’t mentioned this before. After training ended we spend a couple days in Bamako, amazing as always…. Its just eats your money though, and disappears as though it blows away in to the fierce wind… We ate good food and had good drinks…and of course a night of Bamako dancing….

I eventually went back to the bush, to my house in village. Everyone was overly excited to see me, as was I. I had been gone for a while and forgotten how much my village loved me and how much I loved them. While I was there I started doing some work. I went to the garden and found there was no garden. A banna. (Over, DONE) Animals has gotten in and eaten everything. I was practically in tears, and my heart cried. The women work so hard in this garden and everything was just destroyed. So I’m going to be spending the next year working on getting a fence for the garden and reestablishing the garden. The only problem is… the garden is huge 3.5 hectors, over 6 acres and will need to get approximately 1,155 meters of fence. That’s a lot of funding to find! I had womens meeting and starting discussing the plans, and 27 women showed up! YEA!!! (from the usual 8-10).

I haven't yet posted a picture of my house here, here are two... this is my Mali home! I like it, its cute and cozy.... and different than anywhere else I have ever lived! Don't strain your eyes looking for the light switch or refigerator....

This past week we celebrated cinco de mayo….good times as always…. Although I was sick with Mr. D, and spend most of the day in the nyegen. Must have eaten something bad... so it goes

Random Photos…..

One of our favorite (well at least my favorite thing to do is take jumping photos... I could post hundreds...) Its fun, if you've never tried it, you should give it a try.... you never know, you might like it as much as I do.

On the way back from our Cinco de Mayo trip we stopped and biked to my friend Mooch's village, and 20K bike ride from the main road.... and here are some pictures from the ride... it was hot and windy, and we could barely ride our bikes. It almost took us 4 hours..... and it actually occured to us... that we might not make it... ( it was a pretty day)