à la mission

at the mission~ exactly a week ago today, I woke up to my first morning in the Catholic Mission that also serves as a hostel in downtown Bamako.  The day before felt like it hadn't happened-- saying goodbye to the host family for three weeks, packing up almost all of my posessions here, and trekking down the uneven sidewalk...taking a sotrama (for 30 cents instead of a taxi for 4 dollars) downtown, getting hopelessly lost for the next hour, receiving a warm welcome from the nun who most often takes care of guests, buying a yogurt from the Boutiki across the street (soon to become the place where I would always go to break my large bills, as no one ever has change), and going to bed at the ripe hour of 7:30 p.m.
     I knew that I would find it a relief to have some control over daily life, but I had yet to realize how different it feels to be myself again...and how much I would want to hide in the beautifully quiet and tranquil confines of the mission...and of the person I thought myself to be before coming... instead of venturing out into the colorful, dirty, friendly, falling apart, pieced together world of Bamako, followed constantly by cries of "toubabou" and by men wanting to "talk" but really naming all of our future children in their heads and reveling in how I will submit to them once we marry a few months from now (at least that is how I imagine it...surely some of them have less nefarious intentions).  Yes, I have learned how to be much harder on them as well as how to use the carefully honed art of ignoring, after one of them followed me around for two hours and then attempted to teach me names of body parts in Bambara.  Nevertheless, when I do leave the mission, I finally have the opportunity to see what "real" life in Bamako is like, being downtown rather than in the relatively remote neighborhood near the airport where my host family lives.  I begin to feel like I belong as I make friends with the fruit ladies down the street (they always throw in an extra mango or banana, but without my host mom's habitual "Il faut manger"), become a regular at the closest internet café, learn the sotrama lines from here to other neighborhoods, and wave to the server at the restaurant across the street each time I make my way back to the mission, content that he has shown neither an interest in marriage nor teaching me body part names as of yet.
        Research is picking up again as well, with a whopping 20 interviews with women today and tomorrow and a hopeful 9 interviews with midwives all over the city next week (I wonder how far my sotrama knowledge will stretch...).  When I finish transcriptions for the day or momentarily need a break, rest time at the mission is just that--beautiful, glorious rest, whether it be alone time with a book, much-needed sleep, or time in the company of fellow travelers (my first weekend was hugely enriched by the company of Breeta, a German girl my age who just finished working in Togo for 8 months, and of Juan, a 35-year old Spanish guy with a rather pessimistic view on relationships but a traveling heart who loves talking politics and just spent a week pushing a boat to Timbuctou... literally.)  A week of detoxing from salty and oily food with meuslix, fruit, and peanut butter kept on the shelf I have labeled my own in the mission refrigerator, and not only can I breath again spiritually and intellectually but also physically. 
       But yes, seeing the self who I new before coming, I know I will not be able to forget the self that I have seen emerge while being in Mali.  Some things I would have called intolerance before, I now call integrity to one's own principles.  Ideas that I may have called racist before, I now would call intercultural understanding.  And it is important not to forget this other self, because maybe that is even more of who I am than the girl who grew up in a world much more like the catholic mission's sanctuary than the street outside its door.  New seasons indeed.

La Pluie

Rain~ It is nearly impossible to imagine a dry season before experiencing it.  I always knew I loved rain, but I never thought that after three months without it, I would long for it more than I had ever longed for the sun.  This was one of my many fleeting thoughts as we drove back to the village of Sanankoroba for our first week of field research.  There were six of us total, with four girls staying in the "Case d'Amitié"  ("friendship hut") and two who went back to their host family from our village stay a month ago.  Our topics range from domestic violence ot plant knowledge to perceptions of prenancy and the role of the midwife in maternal healthcare (the latter being mine); however, we all went to the same village for the sake of convenience, as every moment of our 5-week research period is invaluable.  Even with our program's established connections, we ran into some major logistical dilemmas bordering on ethical ones, so I hate to imagine what would have happened if we had attempted the unknown.
      However, the week began well for me, with a long afternoon visit to the maternité and a few days of interviews with women that went very smoothly due to my stellar translator.  Wednesday afternon found us sitting with some of her friends waiting for my recorder's batteries to recharge from a car battery kept for that very reason in one of Sanankoroba's "boutikis" (since the power had been out at the Case for the past two days).  I watched the mounting clouds with cautious anticipation.  And then it came, a glorious, two-hour long mango rain (the technical term for such a rain near the end of the dry season)!!!  The Malians all ran for cover, but I joyously took my chair outside and sat in the downpour, letting it wash away dirt, frustration, sweat, and impatience.  "Everyone is looking at you, you know," one of the men in the group said.  But honestly, being a toubabou in Mali, what else is new?  I eventually made my way back to our friendship hut, jumping puddles along the way, and there I found the other three girls dancing and playing hopscotch, sharing in the giddy joy that I had felt, alone, among the Malians with whom I had been during the bulk of the rain.  The icing on the cake was that our electricity was back on.  It didn't even feel like we were in the same country anymore...
      I sat that evening reflecting: this rain welcomed in several new seasons--literally, mango season, practically paradise for the girl who had never had a fresh mango before coming to Mali.  But it also marked the middle of our research time in the village, which had thus far provided more independence than we had had in ages.  There, we made our own dinners with limited salt and oil and no maggi (a disgusting yellow powder used to flavor nearly everything made by our host families).  There, I could go for an hour-long run into the African bush, away from pollution and people, every morning if I wanted to.  There, I could wash dishes to my heart's content, including an entire cabinet of cups and plates covered in...months?...years?...of dust.  We could play with children outside when we were not busy or tired, but if we were, we could go inside and shut the door.  It was possible to be silent or to laugh at our own brand of jokes, to be in company or to be comfortably alone.  Yet again, we could see the stars.  Easter is coming, as are friends' birthdays and our research deadline.  Now I am back in Bamako, holding onto the knowledge and hope of new seasons.  Happy Spring.

les hauteurs

the rock outcropping we climbed...

Heights~ SIT study abroad is nothing if not dynamic in its own way.  One day we are taking exams, the next we are climbing cliffs, and the next we are embarking on a month of research.  Or at least that is how it feels sometimes.  My long absence from this blog and from internet in general is due to our 10 day "grand excursion," a vacation period of sorts during which we traveled to Selengué, Sikasso, and Teryabugu-- not necessarily the most popular tourist destinations in Mali but some of the only ones without travel warnings keeping us away.  It was very strange experiencing a bit of tourist life in this country where we have been doing our best to let ourselves be immersed.  Air conditioned rooms and poolside lounging is practically a culture shock compared to my now habitual nights of drowning in my own sweat and days of which the highlight is my favorite peanut sauce that my host mom makes or a simple interaction with the children who live down the street.  However, it was nice, certainly more relaxing than any other period here has been.  Along with this "height" of relaxation, I certainly found my own personal height of physical fitness during my stay here, running three mornings out of 10 for MORE than half an hour each time. 

     In Sikasso, though, we found our highest of highs; we began by checking out some of the caves at the bottom of a rock outcropping, including one that is considered to be a natural mosque and another that serves as a holy place for animists.  Then, with no warning of what exactly was coming (in normal Malian fashion), our guide told us that it was time to climb up the outcropping.  Steeling myself against my normal fear heights to be expected at the top of a mildly rigorous hike, I followed the rest of the group up the first ladder, only to find another ladder awaiting us and then a 75 degree rock wall that we were expected to climb free hand, followed by a vertical one with a chain hanging from it that was supposed to help us reach the top.  I did not even notice it hitting me, the wave of fear and anxiety that I should have expected but hoped to hold off.  The tears flowed nonetheless, pouring from a place I did not even know existed.  There I stood, at the top of a pile of rocks in Africa sobbing from an uncontrollable and only slightly rational fear.  I did not even notice the sheer drop in front of me, only the sheer climb awaiting behind.  However, Lamine, as always, was right there, assuring me that as my "joking cousin," he would help me climb down, that I was brave (even though I am anything but), and otherwise making me laugh through my helpless tears.
     But we made it back down...and to a few more historical sights that day, a waterfall the next, and finally, the pristine village of Teriyabugu, built by a French ex-priest gone rogue and fostering several environmentally friendly projects.  Thus, I would never refute the fact that my fear of heights is as raging as ever, but only that of literal ones.  Heights of laughter, rest, friendship, fitness, food quality (yes, Teriyabugu had PUMPKIN SOUP), and comfort are periodically important for refereshing the soul, and that is what we found.  Even those tears, in a way, were refreshing.  They probably constituted the first "rain" that rock outcropping had seen in a long time during this dry, dry season.  And finally, I found the time again to read, so I leave you today with a quote from my reading, hoping that in leaving from and coming back to Bamako, France, the U.S., etc., I am beginning to let the wild woman flourish within me:

"Where is [the wild woman] present?  Where can you feel her, where can you find her?  She walks the deserts, woods, oceans, cities, in the bar-rios, and in castles.  She lives among queens, among campesinas, in the boardroom, in the factory, in the prison, in the mountain of solitude.  She lives in the ghetto, at the university, and in the street.  She leaves footprints for us to try for size.  She leaves footprints wherever there is one woman who is fertile soil... She is the maker of cycles.  She is the one we leave home to look for.  She is the one we come home to."  ~Women who Run with the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD)