Mali!

I forgot that I promised you an entry on my vacation to Mali. 5 months and a military coup later, here is my post with plenty of photos!

My adventure to Mali with Cara and Geoff began after a whirlwind 2 weeks of all volunteer conference, WAIST, and COS conference. We left for Tamba immediately after COS conference and caught a ride with Pap, the best PC staff person ever, to the Senegalese border town. We walked across the border into Mali and got the last three seats in a car to Bamako. We underestimated the size of Mali-it's really big, and we didn't arrive in Bamako until late in the night. Thank goodness we had a name of a place to stay! We spent the next day exploring Bamako. Having spent countless hours in cars, we decided to walk around and stretch our legs. We wandered and stumbled upon a free concert that was happening that night, blocks away from our hostel- awesome! Coming from Senegal, we couldn't help compare Bamako to Dakar. In our experience, people in Dakar are a lot more pushy and aggressive. It may be that we weren't in high tourist areas or we still had our vacation goggles on, but we liked Bamako a lot more.   

The morning after the concert, we hopped aboard a bus bound for Sevare, where we were to meet our tour guide, Hassime. It took somewhere between 12-14 hours to get there (thank goodness we had our iPods, travel Scrabble, and plenty of snacks). We stayed at our guide's house and prepared ourselves for our three day hike.

Early the next morning, we hopped into Hassime's car and off we went! It was January, so it was still relatively cool (aka not burning hot) for our hike. I was immediately entranced by Dogon Country. There were hills, people had terraced gardens, and irrigation pipes crisscrossed fields! Day one we saw and hiked to houses imbedded in the cliff-side. The three of us took so many pictures throughout our hike, we probably have a combined total of 700 photos. Once we reached certain areas, Hassime would tell us about the history and the meaning behind symbols, shapes, and buildings. He also answered all our questions, regardless of their relevance or silliness. The morning of day two was shopping! Dogon is known for producing mud cloth and indigo, so of course we had to buy some. I bought a beautiful mud cloth tapestry and a tightly woven cotton cloth brilliantly dyed. Geoff, who would make fun of Cara and I for our fabric obsession, ended up buying the most out of the three of us. Later that day, we hiked up a cliff. We held guns, saw a pet monkey, and watched the sun set from a perch at the edge of the cliff. Day three was amazing and terrifying at the same time. We saw traditional dancers in full headdress come down from the mountains, which was a surprise. After touring two towns, we made our way down the cliff. It was a terrifying, but exhilarating trek with ladders and chasms, but thankfully we all made it. I wanted one more day in Dogon, but alas our trip was over. There's so much history and beauty that I didn't want to leave yet. I definitely didn't do Dogon justice in this paragraph, but hopefully these pictures will give you a better idea. Oh and look... it's number three on top ten treks in the world!

After another night at Hassime's in Sevare, we decided to change our itinerary and spend two days in Segou. Segou is a beautiful town on the Niger river and home to an annual music festival. It was so relaxing and we recuperated by playing scrabble, napping, and meandering around town. We also took a sunset boat ride on the Niger, which was beautiful. I wish I could return to Segou for the music festival. It was time to wrap up our journey and return to Senegal.

The trek home was a nightmare. It involved spending two nights at garages (where it was freezing- I wore my skinny jeans OVER my leggings!), yelling at people in Pulaar about how they weren't good, and yearning to be back in Senegal. We were so frustrated at the end of our trip and our rose colored vacation glasses weren't so rosy anymore, that I ended up with tears of frustration at a garage (they definitely didn't know how to handles that one). We finally made it home to Kolda and that was that. Despite the ending, we had a fantastic time and it was an amazing trip!

We went at the right time. Not long after our trip, there was a military coup. Peace Corps evacuated it's volunteers from Mali and we are no longer allowed to travel there. Hopefully the conflict is resolved soon and people can once again visit.

Peace  

Educate Yourself

When I get home from work, I unwind with a shower, and then watch a movie or read a book. It's me time and I get to decompress from the day, so I usually watch a romantic comedy or an action movie- something that I don't have to concentrate on. Last week, I strayed from the norm on the recommendation of a friend and watched “Waiting for Superman”, a documentary on the public school system in the United States. I was captivated by the stories and found myself crossing my fingers and hoping for the best outcomes. At the same time, I couldn't help but think about the education system here in Senegal and my own schooling.

            

I have been blessed in my schooling with amazing teachers and awesome opportunities. I lucked out. I've always had a passion for learning and was that weird kid who loved going to school (although I didn't finish pre-school...). I had a tough start to school due to the fact that I missed the first week of kindergarten with chicken pox and didn't speak much English. Thanks to the dedication of a patient teacher and additional help at home from my mom and sisters, I quickly caught up and was chattering away in English before long. My education past is a jumble of public and private schools and I wouldn't have it any other way. Here's the breakdown: K-2 private Lutheran school, 3-5 public elementary school, 6-8 public middle school, 9-12 private Jesuit high school. Besides kindergarten, I attended school within a 6 block radius from my house my entire life (and we never moved), but I had incredible experiences that made sure I went beyond my neighborhood bubble.

To this day, I remember so many great ideas my teachers had to encourage learning. They had great strategies including rewarding us with stickers or redeemable tickets (for computer time, free pass on homework, etc), creating games (such as current event Fridays), cooking demonstrations (making Indian fry bread when we were studying Native Americans), and creative projects that made homework fun! In addition to creating a productive learning environment, my teachers taught me a lot about life and how I am in control of my own fate. In eighth grade, my social studies teacher was talking to us about high school and what our options were. My choices were the high performing public school, the local public school, a charter school, and private schools. Due to the tuition costs of the private schools, I had resigned myself to the public school, until my teacher told me about a scholarship program (for high school!). I applied to both the scholarship program and the school and were accepted to both. Thanks to the scholarship and help from my sister, I was able to attend the school that I wanted to. Side note... San Francisco public schools are fantastic, but I didn't want to get lost in the system. Class sizes were on the rise at that point, and I figured that I would benefit from a smaller class size and more focused attention.

The documentary opened my eyes to the problems in American school systems. The statistics that they presented were shocking and I didn't realize the extent of the problem. I'm in the middle ground of keeping myself in the loop of the education system. I care deeply about the state of schools, but being out of school and not looking for schools for my future kids (far off in the future), I've definitely slacked in keeping up to date. In addition, I work peripherally with school systems here and see all the problems that plague the system. Here is a system where teachers and/or students are on strike several times a year and where children have forged birth certificates in order to keep attending school. I wish I had a solution to all these problems, but I don't. One thing that I am involved in is the MSS program (see blog: Girls Rule! For more information). If you would like to help send nine girls to school next year, you can donate to the Senegal Country Fund and mark your donations for “MSS- PCV Wilma Mui”. It's a small effort, but it can go a long way.

                            

Living in Africa, I often hear “you're doing such an amazing thing and you're doing so much good work.” I am thankful for all the support that I receive, but I think that we need to show the same amount of awe and support for teachers, Teach for America volunteers, Americorps volunteers, and anyone else working on the ground level in America. In many ways, their job is a million times more difficult than mine. I'm proud of my friends who chose to work in schools and help shape the nation's future. Last, but not least, I would like to thank ALL my teachers for everything you've taught me and what you've done to shape me into the person I am.

Peace & Learning!

Rice & Peanuts= Peanut Rice?

Now that I have daily access to internet and some down time, I will write those blog posts that I kept putting off my first two years of service. I was bogged down by updating you on my life that I didn't write about fun topics, such as food, transportation, and fashion. That all changes now....

I will NEVER look at a peanut the same way again. Or a grain of rice. Why? Because I've been a part of the entire peanut and rice growing process, from seeding to weeding to harvesting. Thank goodness I love peanuts and rice (and that I don't have a peanut allergy...that would be extrememly difficult). There is something magical about eating a product that you've put so much work into. I didn't garden much in the states, living in San Francisco and LA, but now I want to continue growing my own produce, even if it's only herbs (there's definitely no room for peanuts).                

I love rice and the rice that we harvest from the rice paddies is the best rice that I've ever had. It has a lighter consistancy and has a more buttery taste. However, rice paddies are such hard work. My host mom and my namesake would ask me to go out to the paddies with them all the time and I would go once in a while to see what the process was about. I would come home EXHAUSTED and I would've spent only a quarter of the time working. I don't know how the women do it; they're amazing. They cook and clean, and then spend hours preparing the soil, seeding, and weeding. I remembering telling my grandmother about it and she could relate to my stories. When i whined about how difficult it was, she said, that's how it is, now you know. Then she told me that when we take a trip to China, she's going to make my little sister plant rice so she can also know how difficult it is (sorry Heather).

Peanuts were my main source of protein in village and cracking peanuts (with one hand) is a village pastime. One of my first memories of being in village is going to someone's hut, drinking tea and cracking a large mound of peanuts while sitting on a mat. At that time, it took two hands to crack open the peanuts, but before long, I was able to tap the peanut against the floor with a resounding crack and open it up with one hand....skill. I love peanuts in every form: raw, boiled, roasted, cooked in sauce, peanut butter, you name it and I probably like it. The peanuts here have such a pure flavor. I remember going back to the states and feeling like the peanuts were so processed.

Being here makes me appreciated where my food comes from. Yes, there are a lot more machines involved in the process in the States, but it still takes an extraordinary amount of work to produce a simple meal. A post about food in Senegal to come...

Peace & Appreciation

Parlez- Vous Français?

I've been living in a francophone country for over two years at this point and in those two years, I probably used my french skills a handful of times (usually in cabs in Dakar). Then, I started working in an office where all the documents, meetings, and a majority of conversations are in French. I couldn't depend on my Pulaar skills to get me by like I did when I was in village (as most of my office doesn't speak Pulaar), so it was time to brush up on my French skills.

Two other third year, non Dakar based volunteers joined me in Thies for an intense French seminar. It was a great refresher course and reminded me how much I've forgotten French grammatical structures and the correct usage of tenses. I took French in high school and a semester of it in college to fulfill my requirements, but since then, I haven't had many chances to practice. I used to speak French sporadically with my roommate, but other than that, french left my life. I'm a prime example of how not using a language is the easiest way to forget it. These days, I've begun to forget Cantonese, my first language and a language I studied for 13 years (i'll be honest, my English isn't great either- have you read this blog...).

French class was amazing, but exhausting. A lot of class was breaking the habits that we've acquired in country. Despite being a francophone country, most people don't speak french correctly. There are a lot of Senegal-isms such as adding “quoi” aka “what” to the end of every statement. Our teacher was so patient with us and stressed the fact that we were learning proper french and not “Sengalese French”. Now I speak French fluently!! Just kidding. But hopefully at the end of these two year I'll increase my level from intermediate to advanced. I am confident in my abilities because I enjoy learning languages and am submerged in a French speaking environment at work. Until then, thank goodness for Google translate. =)

A bientôt! Bisous

Peace