Maternal and Child Health in Indonesia

The Wonders of Bali: Those F*cking Monkeys!

2011-07-28T02:27:00.007Z

After a busy last week of analyzing data and putting together a presentation for the Jhpiego Indonesia and USAID staff, I finally let out a sigh of relief and headed to Bali. I actually had a problem with my visa and had to make a choice of going home 10 days early or going to Singapore for a day and re-entering Indonesia to get a new passport stamp. In the end, I decided to go to Singapore so that I could have my vacation in Bali, but being here is a bit lonely. That said, I'm here, I'm relaxing, I'm exploring and all is well.

Before I came to Indonesia, I met a woman who often travels to Bali and we instantly hit it off. Since I've been here, she's been putting me in touch with her friends in/around Bali. One of these wonderful friends, Liza, offered to let me stay at her house and use her motorcycle (which has been awesome, not only for the company, but also for saving money!). She actually lives in Jimbaran, a place in Bali that has very expensive hotels, but is very quiet and relaxing and that sounded like a place I wanted to stay. So, it's worked out perfectly. She picked me up at the airport on Sunday night and gave me a tour of the very popular/touristy areas of Kuta and Legian. I was kind of tired, but without this tour I would have had no idea of where to go throughout the week, so it turned out to be extremely helpful. We then went to a warung (food stand), on the beach, that served fresh seafood - heaven! - and I ordered giant shrimp/prawns. They were grilled and delicious and I will likely dream about them for days to come.

Distant view of Ulu Watu temple, the cliff and the loud breakers crashing against the cliff.

Ulu Watu Temple

The following morning brought about Exploration Day #1. When I go on vacation, I definitely like to explore. There are usually gorgeous sites to see and its a shame to come all this way just to laze on the beach. I actually planned to go to the beach on Monday but as I started out on my moto, the sky was overcast and I thought maybe it would be better not to. So I headed south to Ulu Watu. In general, the whole southern tip of Bali is called Ulu Watu, but there is in particular a Hindu temple that sits on a cliff overlooking the water. I arrived at the temple, parked the moto and paid my admission fee. The old men at the admission counter warned me to take my sunglasses and earrings off and then pointed to a sign to emphasize this. The sign said something about monkeys and then an old man offered to accompany me with a stick to keep the monkeys at bay. I politely declined. So I took my earrings off and put them in my pocket, but not my sunglasses. It was midday and so bright, I wouldn't have been able to see anything. I started up the stairs to the temple and as I reached the top, a path led off to the right along the edge of the cliff. I started off that way and saw some gorgeous breakers crashing against the rock and saw a beautiful pagoda and thought, "When I finish walking around, maybe I'll come sit here and read for awhile." I returned along the path to the actual temple and while walking up the stairs a whole family of monkeys was walking toward me. I dismissed this, but at one point turned around to see two baby/kid monkeys playing (photo below).

The two monkeys I photographed as I lost my sunglasses.

I hate this monkey.

As I stopped to take their mid-action shot, I felt a scratch on my face as my sunglasses were literally ripped off my head. So shocked, I turned around and saw a monkey sitting on the wall with my sunglasses in hand. I immediately thought I might be able to get them back to started walking toward him. He outsmarted me by moving much quicker than I could and then jumping into the nearby tree. I knew all was lost. I didn't think much of it because they were just sunglasses, but like I said, it was midday and really bright. As I started to think there might be a chance I could find someone to get them back, the monkey started chewing off the nose pads and spitting them onto the ground. I hung my head in disappointment and continued walking up the stairs. Monkey 1, Sara 0. Adding insult to injury, a group of Japanese tourists and their guide passed me walking down the stairs and saw the monkey with my sunglasses and started laughing. F*cking monkey.

The idyllic pagoda I hoped to sit under and read.

I made the rest of my visit brief. The temple was beautiful, bust most of it closed off to tourists. I walked around the other side and along the path leading the opposite direction that I had just come and on my return I stopped to take a look at my Lonely Planet. I wondered if there was anything else to do in the area, other than the temple. As I stood, my backpack resting on a large table of sorts, a fat monkey stole the flip flop of an Indonesian woman in front of me. In order to get it back, one of the guards had to give the monkey some fruit. The monkey seemed content with the fruit but as I was flipping through LP, he reached into my bag and pulled my wallet out. With cat-like reflexes, I hit him with my book and grabbed my wallet. He tried to bite me and people were yelling, "Take your bag, take your bag." WTF? At this point, I was DONE with Ulu Watu temple and these god forsaken monkeys. I later learned, not surprisingly, that the people at the temple train them how to steal things. And these trainers can get your things back for you, but not without a fee. In my worst moment, I saw this fat monkey unzipping my wallet and emptying it's contents - bills, both Indonesian and American, coins, photos, pens - and having a party. Great start to my vacation in Indonesia!

He looks so sweet, eating this sweet rambutan. Until he tries to steal your wallet...and then bite you.

Cove at Ulu Watu Beach.

After the temple, I headed down to the beach. It was really only a surfers beach, but it was gorgeous. There were about 100 sand covered steps to get down there, and with my fear of falling up or down stairs, I took my time. The small cove at the bottom of the stairs was so unexpected and so beautiful that I was happy I made the journey. I know nothing about surfing, but the surfers here seemed to be very happy and the waves looked incredible. I thought about trying to find a place to lay out, but with no luck I turned around and headed back to my moto and back to Jimbaran.

The sun was out now and I wanted to lay out and read Harry Potter, but I didn't want to stray too far from where I was. The night before we had passed some very nice hotels that I knew must have awesome swimming pools, so I stopped by the InterContinental, one of my favorite hotels in the world. By simply telling the security staff I was meeting someone, I was able to sneak in and have some pretty luxurious R&R. The chairs around the pool were plush, there was a swim up bar in the pool, and the beach was just a few steps away. Of course, the almost $10 milkshake I bought shook me back to reality, but it was nice while it lasted. Finally I headed up to Legian Beach to have an Italian pizza dinner and watch the sunset. With the exception of the monkeys and the lost sunglasses, it was a pretty good first day.

My stolen view at the InterContinental

Sunset at Legian Beach.

Serang, West Java

2011-07-08T13:24:00.007Z

Sign for Midwife Ratini, next to the poskesdes.

Mother's waiting their turn for an interview.

Group photo in front of the poskesdes - including the village midwife and the village health workers.

An early morning was the beginning to our last field visit, Serang. I can’t say that waking up at 4:30 and leaving at 5:15 was my ideal travel schedule, but knowing that I was one day closer to being finished with these interviews was motivation enough. Don’t get me wrong, the interviews have been fascinating. But after conducting 230 of them, and knowing that we have between 60 and 70 to go feels great. It’s been a frustrating past two weeks and our past two sites have been difficult. I dozed between Jakarta and Serang, normally a two hour trip but it only took us an hour and half since we left before there was any traffic. We arrived at what I would later realize was the MCHIP office and I was eagerly greeted by many “hellos” which confused me as I was waking up. After walking into the office and barely noticing the MCHIP sign on the wall, everyone interrupted a conference call with the States (which I can totally imagine being in the States on that conference call and being like, “what in the world is going on?”) to greet me and I sunk into a leather loveseat and listened to their workplan for the month of July. The MCHIP team in Serang is supported by John Snow, Inc., which I’ve heard great things about! The project manager/leader is actually a dentist by training, and the entire team is very well organized. At 8 AM, we headed to the District Health Office to meet the Director and discuss our purpose for being in Serang. Since he had already received the official letter from MCHIP, he told us that he was really pleased that we were doing this research. He then, unlike any other DHO has done, explained to me that in Serang – and much of West Java – culture and traditions play a huge role in people’s daily lives. Many women want to stay home to be comfortable and surrounded by their families, including grandmothers and grandfathers, to deliver their babies. While there has been a shift toward using more midwives than TBAs, TBAs are still very present at the village level. This was a nice backdrop to have before beginning our interviews. He also acknowledged that the results of our research will be very important for future planning in the district. Yes, another district that cares and wants to use the results to put into action! After our meeting with the DHO we left for Barugbug.

Our drive began through the city where Isti pointed out good salons and restaurants to dine at. She previously spent two months here with another midwife volunteer who worked on training midwives. We continued, me not really caring about my surroundings. After maybe 10 km, or so, we turned off toward Barugbug and the entire landscape changed. All of a sudden we were surrounded by banana and palm trees and small houses on the side of the road. After a few km, a mountain appeared through the morning mist/haze, and I looked around confused, thinking, “Wasn’t I just in the city?” I felt like we fell into a totally different dimension of the district we were in. We arrived at the Padarincang puskesmas and picked up the midwife coordinator before heading to Barugbug. We retraced the road that we had just taken and turned left down a narrow and steep alley. The “road” soon became a horrible mess of rocks and a previously paved road. We traveled through a small village until we reached a stream and a bridge. After crossing the bridge, the landscape again changed full of green rice fields and tall palm trees and mountains in the background, one one side, and a badly polluted stream on the other. I finally felt that I had found the Indonesia I was looking for. Where has this quaintness been in the past six weeks? And why did it take until my last field visit to find it? Admitedly, I’m happy that Serang wound up being our last field visit instead of our first. If this landscape had been my first day of field visits and the rest had gone downhill, I would have been really disappointed. Though, Minas was really nice, it was just all those oil pipelines that ruined the scenery for me. I digress….

Woman walking along the road from the rice fields back to the village

The bright green grass and mountainous - ok, hilly - scenery surrounding what I presume to be a resting area/hut in the middle of the rice field.

When we arrived at Barugbug, we went to the poskesdes where a posyandu had just ended. It took us a few minutes to get set up because the midwife was still administering vaccinations, so I eagerly took out my camera and started shooting mothers and babies. It wasn’t long before I was called in to start interviewing though. We interviewed 13 women today and it took almost four hours. This after our last day of interviews in Bojonegoro was 12 women and only took two hours. It was a challenging day for us, and the beginning of what will likely be a challenging week. The education system in West Java must be terrible compared to the two other regions we visited. We have one question, that depending on the context, asks women why they chose to deliver where they did or what might encourage them to deliver at a facility, and we offer them a list of 15 possible choices. We definitely ran into some problems when we started our interviews because the list was difficult to understand. For example, one of the options is “Distance” but this means different things if you’re choosing to deliver at home because you don’t have to go anywhere or if you’d be encouraged to go to a facility if it were closer. After experiencing these difficulties (mainly in West Java) we wrote out very clearly what the options meant for both a non-facility and facility response. Despite making it as clear as possible and having had no problems in the last 70 interviews, we find ourselves again in West Java where the women get confused and flustered by the list and many cannot even read the options or understand what they mean. This makes our research really challenging because technically we’re supposed to ask every question the same way. But when someone doesn’t understand the question, are you just supposed to pass it by? So we kind of danced around these questions today and tried to come up with a plan for making sure these women understood the question. What’s even more frustrating is when the women clearly do not understand the question, and just start naming off responses. I’m not sure why they don’t say, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand this question, can you please explain it better?” - we encourage them to ask questions if something isn't clear. It must be pride, but their pride is ruining my data! An example of this, from today, is a woman saying that she would be encouraged to go to a facility because she knows it cleaner than delivering at home. But in the next question, asking if she would recommend to her friends/family to deliver at home, she says yes and then cites cleanliness at home, to support her recommendation. These situations make for a really long day, especially when we’re used to these interviews taking 9-12 minutes and they are drawn out to 15-20 minutes. Doesn’t sound like a huge change, but since I can’t jump in and say, “Okay, this is what we’re trying to say…” I get frustrated as well. That said, I was just really happy to be sitting in this idyllic village and these issues weren't affecting me like they had before (I will write more about what happened in Kawawang).

Mothers and babies.

More mothers and babies.

We had some interesting stories today, which isn’t necessarily the case every day. I can imagine that since we’re in a region that has such strong ties to culture and tradition, that the experiences of women here will surprise me a little every day. The majority of women that we interviewed today delivered at home, either with a TBA or midwife. Two of the women had prolonged labors. One young woman, 20 years old, was in labor for three days before the TBA finally referred her to the puskesmas. Three days? I’m curious what the TBA thought after the first 24 hours - did she think she had a solution to the labor? And what about 48 hours? Another woman, pictured below, is 46 years old and has eight children. Her latest birth was a few months ago and she spent five days in labor. What? Five days? On her fifth day, with no hope in sight of delivering this baby, the imam at the mosque came to her house and told her that she must have a ghost around her which was prohibiting her from delivering her baby. He gave her some “holy water” – I don’t know what it’s called in Islam – and she miraculously delivered her baby the same day.

46 year old woman, pictured with four of her eight children. She survived five days in prolonged labor.

Our first interview of the day.

The only issue I take in all of this is wondering if the TBAs and village midwifes are really upholding their oath of protecting women’s lives and ensuring their safety by getting them the services they need when they need them. I was told, “Well, maybe the women don’t want to go to the facilities.” In my opinion, it’s the responsibility of the TBAs and midwives to inform – and even possibly force – these women to get to the facility to deliver their babies before three or five days pass. I’m amazed that after five days in prolonged labor that this woman didn’t die. These are the instances that I wish culture and tradition weren’t so strong and that TBAs and midwives could say, “You’re going to die if you don’t go to the hospital” in order to make these women realize how grave their situation is.

I was sitting behind the window to this boys right, and he and other young children kept playing peek-a-boo with me. To win their hearts over, I take their pictures and then surprise them by showing them their photo on my camera. It works, almost, every time.

I loved this baby who, though asleep, looks so distressed with her little hand covering her face.

A young girl who thought she was afraid of me until I took her photo.

Mount Bromo - my first volcano!

2011-07-05T08:28:00.001Z

My first bit of tourism in Indonesia was visiting East Java's Mount Bromo. I'll let the photos - albeit bad photos - tell most of the story, but there's always a story! Since we don't work on Sundays, but we were in East Java, we drove six hours from Bojonegoro to Probolinggo, where most visitors start the assent to Mount Bromo. We left Bojonegoro on Saturday around 12:30, meaning we wouldn't arrive until after dark. If there's one thing I learned in Peace Corps that I will never forget, it's not to travel at night in developing countries. There are rarely street/road lights, you can't see anything, and many cars and motorcycles aren't in good working condition, i.e. front head lights. We arrived in Probolinggo right around sunset and started driving up the mountain. At first it wasn't so bad, but as the night set in - as it does early here in Indonesia - and the sky became pitch black, it became harder to see where we were going. Pitch black countryside, with the exception of our headlights and winding roads all the way up to 2,000 meters. It was the first night I've seen the stars in Indonesia, maybe one of the only places in the country where there's no light pollution (I'm exaggerating, but not much). As we were driving, and the endless road became steeper, I was comforted by the fact that it was dark and I couldn't see anything. I imagined that the drive down the next day would be lovely though. Though there are many hotels to choose from, we chose to stay at the hotel closest to the volcano, which would mean a shorter time in the morning to get to the top for sunrise. When we got out of the car it was cold, but it wasn't that cold. To see Indonesian's bundled up in parkas, scarves, hats and gloves was a sight. And the way they all huddled together to keep warm was funny. After we checked in we headed to the lodge, the restaurant and general hang out area. I felt like I was at a ski resort, except there was no snow and I was wearing sandals. Standing outside the entrance to the lodge were vendors of wool socks, scarves and hats. The guide books say that it can drop to between 3 and 20 degrees Celsius and it was recommended to me that I rent a coat to wear. I brought the only warm clothes that I brought to Indonesia: two long sleeve tshirts, long pants and sneakers. If it were for the fact that we were planning on going up the mountain at 4:00, I probably wouldn't have rented the jacket, but I didn't know how cold it might be that early. So I spent the $3 to ensure my warmth.

Sunday morning we woke up at 3:30 and hopped in an old school Land Cruiser to make our way up the mountain. Before we got in the car, there were again vendors selling their usual wares, but now selling those surgical-like masks that people wear when they're sick or have Bird Flu. All I thought was, "What? Really?" I would later regret my casual walk by the surgical masks en route to the car. Considering we were as far up as one could go without these 4X4's, the drive only took maybe 15 minutes. On the dusty road we passed people on foot and horses bringing people up. Once we arrived as far as we could go, we had to get out and walk the rest of the way. The walk up consisted of a windy, dusty path, full of people and horses carrying those up who couldn't/didn't want to walk. After you got to a certain point, the horses couldn't go any further and there were stairs to climb the rest of the way. It was a brutal climb because everyone and the horses were kicking up so much dust - I finally realized what the masks were for. I later realized that this dust was actually ash from Bromo. I immediately had dust in my nose and my mouth and I could feel it between my toes.

When we finally got to the top, it was maybe 4:00 AM and pitch black, with nothing to see or do but wait. Isti wasn't able to make it up, so I went with some random guy who happened to stop at the same time we stopped and she said she couldn't continue. As usual, big mistake. The only good/use that this guy was was telling me which direction the volcano was, otherwise, I would have been staring at the side of the mountain waiting for some excitement. The bad thing was that he thought I was his best friend and was clinging to me like a fly. At one point, these two women from Korea were trying to take self photos and I offered to take their photo in exchange for them taking mine. As I posed for the photo, this guy jumped into the photo, as you'll see below. I'm too nice and too worried about looking like an obnoxious American to have pushed him off the ledge, though the thought was there. Anyway...as the sun rose, I tried to take some photos of the gorgeous landscape, the mountain side below and some other mountains in the distance. The cool thing though was once the sun rose enough that we could see the volcano and the ash coming out of it, everyone was captivated. Over the next hour or so that I spent on this mountainside watching the volcano, it "erupted" 2 or 3 times, which was pretty cool. Each time the ash cloud formed a new shape before it dissipated. Another volcano, in the distance also emitted a small cloud of ash, as if to try and steal the show from Bromo.

After awhile I started my way down to meet Isti and continue back to the hotel. I was told that the price we paid included a trip to the Sea of Sand, that surrounded the base of the volcano, but that since the volcano was active that we couldn't walk up to the top. Whoa, who said anything about walking to the top? I had no idea that was even an option. The Sea of Sand didn't sound to thrilling, but we went anyway and started walking toward Bromo. Turns out that people were walking up to the lip of the volcano and once the guide and I started walking I was ready to go to the top! In the end, we wound up not walking all the way up and instead turned around to go back to the hotel.

Landscape at sunrise

First view of Bromo with a cloud looming overhead.

My faux best friend, me and Bromo. Can we photoshop him out?

A new burst of ash from Bromo

Long line of Land Cruisers who ushered their guests to the mountain. Luckily we got there early enough that ours was at the top of that long line.

Bromo's jealous cousin emitting his own ash

Third new puff of ashThird new puff of ash

The Sea of Sand - there's a Hindu temple down there at the base between both mountains, but you'll have to click on the photo to see.

View from midway up the volcano, over the sea of sand and to where we stood earlier for the sunrise.

People climbing to the rim of Bromo. I will say that about 30 minutes later, as I was sipping my hot tea in the lodge, Bromo erupted again. This also happened about 30 minutes after that. I'm sure everyone was fine, but with the amount of ash I already had in my nose, I was kind of happy we didn't go all the way up.

View of Bromo from the Sea of Sand

Our car, covered in ash from Bromo

The gorgeous view on the way down winding roads of the mountain

We left Bromo around 9:30 to head back to Bojonegoro. All in all, it was a pretty good trip, if not a quick one. I had ash in my mouth, nose and ears for a few days after and I still have ash in my sneakers that finds its way between my toes when I'm running. It was certainly exciting to see the volcano, but I missed having an adventurous friend there to climb to the top and to take ridiculous jumping photos.

How long is too long? Or too short?

2011-07-03T12:02:00.002Z

I’m at the midpoint of my summer internship and I’m having mixed feeling about…well, everything. It’s been a month and I’ve accomplished a lot, in terms of interviewing women, collecting research and visiting several different sites, but I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing in terms of integrating and adapting to Indonesia. There are definitely some reasons I can identify as to why I feel unaccomplished, but I’m sure there are other reasons that aren’t making themselves too evident:

I had assumptions and expectations – someone once told me that making assumptions was the dumbest thing you could do (maybe not in those words, but that’s what she meant). Ever since then, I cringe when I’m talking to someone and I say, “Well, I assume it was because….” because I wonder if they’re thinking, “wow, she’s making assumptions – not smart.” But then I remember that everyone makes assumptions. I didn’t realize that Indonesia was as developed as it is and I didn’t really grasp that there were 200 million people here. I mean, how can you really know what 200 million people feels like, when the largest population you’ve lived amongst was 500,000?

I also expected things would be a little different than they are. I don’t really feel like I’m doing a ton of physical work, since I’m not doing the interviewing, but rather listening to 12-15 interviews a day in Indonesian and then circling the women’s responses on my questionnaire. I suppose interviewer fatigue has set in. I know I’ll have a ton of work to do analyzing the data and writing my report when all is said and done, I just wish I was a little bit more involved in the day to day. I also thought (though I don’t know why) that I’d be involved in coordinating things, and since I’m not and have really no control over the coordination of our day to days, it gets annoying when things don’t go right. Everyone seems very laid back about the research I’m doing, but I feel very protective of making sure that everything’s perfect since I’m planning on using the data for my master’s paper and hoping to publish or possibly submit for Global Health Council. It’s frustrating to think that you’re on the same page with someone and constantly get questions like, “So, what do you want to do?”

I constantly compare everything to Mali – I love Mali, we all know that. My heart is there, my life is there, and I will be there (soon). During my first year at UNC, I focused on Indonesia in a variety of classes or for papers. I wrote about Islamic Feminism in the context of Indonesia and studied the data from the DHS on family planning until I was sick of it. I was intrigued by the idea of Indonesia and how so many public health programs had been successful here. I thought it would be a great idea to see them in action and see how they could be transplanted or adapted to Mali/West Africa. I also kind of fell in love with the idea of Indonesia – the largest Muslim population, the sight of hundreds of beautifully decorated mosques, a country made up of thousands of islands, Bali – what wasn’t to fall in love with? I even talked to Baba about the possibility of moving to Indonesia and working here for awhile. He definitely didn’t love the idea, but I thought I needed to come see it to decide if the romantic idea of Indonesia in my mind matched the reality. It doesn’t for me, and no matter what happens here, I’m really happy that I know that. I miss the simplicity of Mali: the deserted highway from Bamako to Sevare with the exception of villages popping up here and there; the dusty roads traveling out to villages, the freedom to ride my bike anywhere and everywhere I want, and more than anything, the ability to connect and communicate with everyone and the openness and friendliness of – most – Malians. I don’t speak Bahasa Indonesian, and to be honest I really have no desire to. This pains me to say, as a devout Peace Corps volunteer, whose goal was to integrate into the community. Instead of listening to my Learning Indonesian podcasts and faithfully carrying around my Lonely Planet Phrasebook, I speak to most people in French and Bambara because in my mind, that’s what I should be doing in a foreign country. I don’t anyone here, with the exception of Anne, the woman I’m living with, a few staff at Jhpiego and my translator. And maybe it’s easier not to know anyone? Since I don’t have long term plans here, maybe it’s better not to get attached to anyone, I don’t know.

I'm definitely at a midpoint slump, and have marked every activity and deadline on my calendar until vacation in Bali and until I leave at August 2nd to return to Chapel Hill. So I ask, how long it too long or too short to be in a place? Obviously our internships couldn't be longer than 2 or 3 months, that's the nature of the academic schedule. But for me, without having more time invested in a place, and knowing that things will continue here status quo after I leave, and that my life is waiting for me in Chapel Hill, I don't feel motivated to invest in integrating here. Maybe it's the question of time, or maybe it's the question of where I am. I feel strongly that I would be motivated to integrate if I were in another West African country. I'm happy I'm in Indonesia right now, but I'll be happy to leave and continue my journey as a public health practitioner and advocate for women and children's health in West Africa.

Women in Bojonegoro know how to deliver in facilities

2011-07-02T07:22:00.004Z

My favorite respondent in Bojon: She's 45 and her daughter was born 4 months ago. Her daughter's older siblings are 14 and 21. With this unexpected surprise, we can definitely say that family planning was needed in this household.

But she's SO adorable!

Two districts down, two to go. I was excited about our trip to Bojonegoro (which I’ll refer to as Bojon) because it meant flying to the opposite side of Java and seeing how this place runs it’s maternal and child health program. We flew into Surabaya, a large port city and the second largest city in Indonesia (and one of the largest red light districts in Asia, I just found out). We didn’t see the city, but started out to Bojon. Despite Google maps telling me it was 110 km and about 2 hours, it turned out to take 3 hours to get there. The road was good, part of the trip was on a toll road. The road after the toll road was quaint – it seemed like we were driving through small towns along the way, each had a beautiful mosque adorning the road side, most under construction of some sort. The other side of the road had a train track where several trains passed us, passengers hanging out of the doors probably trying to get a reprieve from the stifling heat inside. We arrived in Bojon after sunset, with a light rain and headed to the hotel. Pretty nice hotel, but infested with mosquitoes which required me to go on a killing spree before I could relax. The ceiling was too high, so I often stood on a chair, throwing something at the ceiling as I hurled myself off the chair. It took awhile, but I got most of them! I settled into an evening of CSI and NCIS reruns on TV.

The next morning, per usual, we went to the District Health Office to meet the staff, discuss our research and get their blessings. The women running the DHO were amazing – they knew all sorts of statistics about Bojon, which most other DHOs can’t give me. I was pretty immediately impressed. I found out the following:

Bojon Population: 1.2 million

430 villages

# of Public Hospitals: 3

# of Private Hospitals: 6

# of Puskesmas: 36

# of Pustu (Assisted Puskesmas): 68

# of Ponkesdes (a new facility we had not yet heard of: a facility with a midwife and a nurse): 100

# of Polindes: 300

% of women who use TBAs for delivery: 2

I also found out that between 2007 and 2010, there was an increase in MMR to 90 per 100,000, despite a reported facility-birth rate of over 70%. 70%? That’s amazing. Obviously this district is doing something right to ensure a facility-birth rate of over 70%. I felt like maybe we had come upon a district that, despite decentralization, was really paying attention to its women and children and not building bridges and roads with government money. This seemed like a really great start to our week.

A note here about Bojon’s definition of facility and the way we’ve defined facility for our research. They have included all of the facilities above (Hopsital, Puskesmas, Pustu, Ponkesdes and Polindes) in their 70%+ numbers. Our survey doesn’t include Ponkesdes, Polindes and really shouldn’t include Pustu either. None of these facilities have more than one provider (a midwife) in case of emergency or complication. That said, the Polindes that we found in Bojon were incredible. They were new, clean and well stocked with equipment and medicines. Much more so than some hospitals I’ve seen and certainly more than Polindes we’ve seen in other districts that amounted to no more than a small two roomed facility that had nothing inside of it. All this is to say that even though Bojon quotes this 70%+ number, we should still be able to find non-facility births, either at home or at these facilities that aren’t included in our research. After the first two days of visiting Polindes, where we should have found some non-facility births, but whose midwifes encouraged all the women to go to her private birthing center instead, we hadn’t found any. With this problem, we went to the DHO after we finished our interviews to discuss how to change our strategy of which villages to visit because we needed a certain number of facility, non-facility and pregnant respondents. When we reported to the DHO what had already happened, she yelled to her assistants to bring some documents to her. All of a sudden, the rate of facility-births in Bojon district was 94.7%, not the 70%+ that was quoted two days before. Okay, technically 95% is more than 70%, but there was definitely a problem in the way these numbers were presented to me and I was frustrated. Regardless, since the above mentioned facilities are part of the 95% number, but not part of our research parameters, that still meant that we should be able to find women that had delivered in these facilities, specifically any one of the 300 Polindes that I was told existed. The DHO staff seemed to think I was crazy and that I wasn’t for some reason understanding that we couldn’t find these women. I, at the same time, seemed to think they were crazy trying to push off a 95% facility-birth rate, while telling me at the same time that their MMR increased. To top it all off, my translator was driving me crazy by telling me that their numbers had to be correct, they had the data to back it up! She said she didn't believe it, but they had the data. Right, like data is never wrong. This comes from someone who is supposed to be helping me gather this research and later analyze the data. I told her I really didn’t care what their numbers and their data said, that the numbers didn’t jive. Over and over I was told, “Well, you’re not going to be able to find the numbers of non-facility women that you’re looking for,” while I repeated to them over and over that we needed about 23 non-facility women to interview. I could have probably backed down, but I was fighting for the statistical significance of my data (and my pride)! I’m not really sure how things worked themselves out in the end, since I was so pissed that I was being told that out of 400 non-facilities, I wouldn’t be able to find 23 women.

The first woman I saw feeding her child with a bottle. She is unable to breastfeed.

Quite the opposite of the woman above, this woman is overfeeding her baby to the point of obesity. This baby was only 3 months old and his mother had a hard time carrying him around. She reported that she was only feeding him breastmilk.

In the end, we wound up finding our women, though only 20 of them. Most of them had delivered at the Polindes, though there were a few home births mixed in there. We visited a variety of puskesmas, polindes and private midwives clinics. There was definitely an energy about the women in Bojon. They all seemed to have really good reasons for going to facilities, which means that someone is doing their job educating the women about the need to deliver in a facility. The women we found that delivered at home did so either because they didn't have money and didn't know about jampersal (the government policy to pay for births at facilities) or didn't make it to a facility in time.

Polindes in Mojosari

Delivery room at the polindes.

Actual trash cans outside of the polindes and along the road in this village

Village map in Sidobandung - green, yellow and red stickers all show where pregnant women live and classify them by normal, low-risk and high-risk pregnancies. The map is updated as women become pregnant.

Polindes in Ngunut: A map of the village including locations for the polindes, mosque, and showing rivers and bridges.

In the labor room at the polindes in Ngunut. I guess a rusty nail on the wall is as good as place to leave a stethascope

This is an emergency medical kit with essentials needed during labor and if there are minor complications. This one is quite empty, perhaps the reason that the midwife takes all the pregnant mothers to her pri

We conducted fewer interviews here than in the other two districts – only 68 compared with 82 and 74. For whatever reason, the situation at the DHO completely frustrated me and put quite a sour note on my week. Bojon made me feel completely over being in Indonesia and completely ready to go home. I’d never been happier to hear the words, “Welcome to Jakarta” from the airline pilot. I needed the comfort of my Jakarta house with swimming pool and good food before heading out to our last district: Serang.

Jakarta Breaks and (scary) Indonesian Food

2011-06-29T10:27:00.000Z

For the first two weeks I spent in Jakarta, all I could think about was getting out to the field and seeing what “real” Indonesia was all about. After being in the field for a week, I shocked myself by being pretty excited to go back to Jakarta. I know, I’m crazy, right? I’ve really learned to enjoy and relish the couple of days I have in Jakarta by sleeping in and spending at least one day by the pool working on my summer tan, killing my annoying psoriasis with UV rays and falling into the plot of a book. Since I’ve done this twice already and am coming upon the third time, I must say it’s the thing that makes me most excited to go back. Well, the pool and the food. Before I came my preceptor send me a short document about things to know/do before coming and one of them talked about the food saying that “Indonesian food is nothing special.” I read this a few times and thought, well, that can’t be right, there have got to be good things. As I thought more about it I realized I didn’t know one Indonesian dish, nor had I ever seen an Indonesia restaurant that I could test out. Nevertheless, I kept an open mind and trying the food remained at the top of my list of things to be excited about.

Before I talk a little bit about the food I’ve tried (which admittedly hasn’t been too much) and that I’ve seen, I want to send a huge shout out to Ibu Yumi, the cook at Anne’s house. She’s been a cook for many years for expat families and she can equally make a delicious tofu and stirfry as she can tacos or lasagna. The first few nights I thought, “Hmm, American food…not too exciting.” And now, I long for her cooking. My first day we went to a shopping mall, to the food court for lunch. Looking around, it was mostly Indonesian restaurants, but also Malaysian, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. The descriptions of food included cow’s feet, chicken feet, duck eggs and other mysterious delicacies that I didn’t want to venture into on Day 1. I also learned that a lot of the dishes are based in coconut milk, which isn’t abnormal for Southeast Asia. Normally, I love coconut milk and I even jumped for joy at Trader Joe’s when they brought back their Thai tuna packets that were based in red and green coconut curries. But I also took a cooking class in Thailand where all 9 of the dishes I learned to make were based in coconut milk and part of the class was to taste everything afterward. As of May 2009, coconut milk is one of my least favorite things. So, when I found out that the majority of the dishes are in coconut milk, my excitement level dropped considerably. The upside to Indonesian food is that all meals have rice! Even though I love a little variety in my diet, I could eat rice every meal for the rest of my life; that’s the Mali in me. All that said, when we’re not in Jakarta, food options are sparse. I’ve become very fond of this one “sauce” (based in coconut milk, can you believe it!) called renda (from West Sumatra), and of course there’s always a variety of friend noodles to be found. But in general, I eat a midafternoon lunch and try to avoid the food the rest of the day, instead searching for some fruit vendors on the streets.

The window of a padang restaurant

I thought I was doing alright, if not loving the food, at least tolerating it and eating what I found edible, but the other day we went to a restaurant that serves Padang food (the same food where the renda sauce that I like originates) and the style in these restaurants is to bring small plates of everything to the table. You then choose what you want and you only pay for what you eat. Afterward, I’m assuming, they take the plates back and return the dishes to their larger serving bowls and waits for the next customers. My issue with this style of serving food is that unless you arrive as soon as it’s cooked (presumably at 6 or 7 AM), the food is always cold. The rice is warm and the idea is that eating the padang food with hot rice will heat it up, but one of the many lessons I learned in Africa was not to eat cold or luke warm food; hot food meant that any germs, parasites or other contaminants would be less harmful to my digestive track and system. Nevertheless, I eat this food with caution and hope for the best. My other issue, and possibly the reasons I will limit my visits to padang restuarants, was the choice of dishes that were brought to our table. My renda was there, this time with a choice of beef or beef liver, two things I generally like, but then there was also chicken brain, tripe, intestines, lungs and spleen.

A variety of padang food brought to our table

I considered taking photos of each of these dishes and then decided against it. While I’m happy that all parts of the animal are consumed here – for many reasons, among which are the ever growing worldwide desire for meat, ensuring that the population has protein and not wasting it – it was a bit of a shock to see my fellow colleagues eating and enjoying these dishes. It also renews my vow to continue searching for greens and fruit, while outside of Jakarta, whenever possible. I promise more food photos, plus a trip to the market coming soon.

Extra Photos

2011-06-29T06:57:00.001Z

A couple photos I forgot to include, and they don't really fit in anywhere else from Karawang:

After finishing some interviews at a private midwife's house/practice, I stumbled upon this school with all the children dressed to a tee in their uniforms. I gathered them together for the photo, this isn't the natural way they spend their day. Per usual, the girls act very demure and well behaved while the boys behind them try to show me their best devil horns or I love you signs, I can't really tell. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Problems in Karawang

2011-06-29T02:57:00.001Z

I often feel like my life here is a comedy of errors and that all of a sudden, the guy from Candid Camera is going to pop out and say, “Surprise, you’re on Candid Camera.” Sadly – or maybe not – that hasn’t happened yet. Karawang certainly started off that way. Midway through the week, we visited a village that was only about a km or 2 from the city, but down a terribly broken road that was jarring for the 10 minutes it too to ride down. In addition to that, the only way to cross the “river” that divided this village from the jarring road, was a small foot or moto bridge that I wasn’t too trusting of to walk across. When the midwife coordinator suggested that our hired car drive across the bridge, I immediately imagined the driver being unable to balance on the edges of the bridge and us in the water. Luckily, he had the foresight to say no. The one thing I love about the villages that we’ve visited is that they are little labyrinths. The roads are narrow, and there are so many streets jutting off from the main one. We arrived at a posyandu in progress with tons of women and children. The village health worker, who was weighing the babies, was actually a man. I had, until now, only seen female village health workers, so I was happy to see that men were engaged in the fight toward maternal and child health as well. We set up in the village health worker’s house and got to work right away. The interviews started off as usual, but as we got to the end of the group, this weird thing started happening. We ask all postpartum women this question:

Would you recommend to your friends and family to deliver at the same location where you delivered? Which of the following is the most important reason influencing your decision?

And then we provide this list for them to choose from:

1 Cost

2 Distance

3 Cleanliness

4 Transport available

5 Good supply of drugs and equipment

6 Type of health provider

7 Experience of health provider

8 Attitude of health provider

9 Relationship with health provider

10 Being treated with respect

11 Facility where usually go

12 Safety for mother and child

13 Health worker recommended

14 Referred by another facility

15 Other (specify)

98 Don’t Know

Not only were many women unclear about the list of choices – it is a bit cumbersome – but women’s response to the question about recommending was often, “I don’t want to recommend anything. What happens if that woman has a complication or problem, then it’s my fault because I recommended it.” Interesting theory. I can understand the guilt that women might have in this case, but the question doesn’t ask women to be so complex in their thinking and think of repercussions down the road. It made me think that maybe women don’t sit around and talk about this stuff like I thought. I thought that on any day, when pregnant and postpartum women were hanging out, a conversation might come up about where the women delivered or were planning to deliver, and each woman giving her (unsolicited) opinion about which location is the best. Does this happen? Does it not happen? Obviously, I don’t really know. I was also surprised that women would go to such lengths to think through the repercussions of this question, yet they were confused and often unable to answer the question associated with the list. After this roundabout with at least 5 women, it felt like one of those days that I just wanted to go back to the hotel, crank the AC and read my Steig Larson book. Unfortunately, our hotel was ridiculously far and inconvenient, taking us about an hour and half from the village to arrive at the hotel. With that distance, we should have just stayed in Jakarta.

Destination: Karawang

2011-06-28T12:39:00.000Z

Our second field visit, destination Karawang. Karawang is in Java, just east of Jakarta about one and half hours. Since its so close, we left very early on Tuesday morning to beat the traffic. Karawang is one of Jhpiego’s cervical cancer sites and that’s about all I know. I’m not sure what they’re doing in terms of cervical cancer, but I’m happy to know that the health systems are at least equipped to tackle cervical cancer, which is more than I can say about a lot of countries where basic health needs are barely being met. We started our visit with the obligatory visit to the District Health Office and then traveled to the puskesmas where we would be basing our village visits. I’m still constantly surprised about how big places are. I don’t know the square mileage of Karawang, but it seemed as if we could drive at least an hour in any direction and still be in Karawang. After we found the puskesmas, we picked up the midwife coordinator and headed to a small village, Dukuh Kariya, to begin our interviews. I was already pretty tired at this point, I only slept like 4 hours the night before, so the thought of interviewing 15+ women was not getting my pumped about the day. We met at one of the village health worker’s houses where the posyandu takes place. By the time we arrived, the posyandu was already finished, but she was able to go and call and bring some of the women back to talk with us.

Midwife Coordinator, Ibu Yuli, who was very awesome and very maternal.

Posyandu sign in Dukuh Kariya

Our interviews went pretty well, and we were learning a lot about services in this village. I previously talked about jampersal, a governmental program that will pay women to deliver in facilities. There are some challenges around it because the government will only reimburse the midwives 350,000 RP, when they might normally charge 700,000 RP or more. So, I think it’s a good program to get women into facilities, but I think its limiting midwives and creating a situation where they can start to corrupt the system (which we’ve already seen) by telling women that it costs only 100,000 or 150,000 Rp instead of 700,000 Rp and then they’re pocketing the 150,000 and getting the 350,000 Rp reimbursement from the government. Confused? Just read it again. The bottom line is that there are still kinks to work out and since the government hasn’t (and can’t) implement jampersal nationally, it’ll take awhile for the individual districts to work out the problems. That said, Dukuh Kariya took jampersal in a whole new direction. The private midwife who lives and works in the village is a government employee who also works at the puskesmas and earns a monthly government salary. Based on this, it appears that it wasn’t so much her decision to implement jampersal in the village as it was decided for her. We then learned that jampersal is accepted at her private facility as well as for HOME BIRTHS. That’s right, home births. The whole idea of this program is to get women to a safer facility, and now we’re offering them to stay at home and deliver for free. Problematic, for sure, but I had to remind myself – as I have to almost daily – that we’re not here to change things, we’re just here for data. This news was the biggest of the day because it was so odd. Since Indonesia decentralized, which I don’t know much about, the districts have more power than the national government and therefore decide what to use their money on. That’s why we see that Karawang has implemented jampersal and Minas, for example, hasn’t. Apparently the districts use the money for infrastructure instead of health, which isn’t exactly surprising. So, it was good to know that Karawang took the leap and started providing free deliveries for women, but it doesn’t sound like it was executed the best way.

Posyandu, filled to the brim with women and their children

Concerned mother with her newborn, talking to the midwife and village health worker about the progress of her baby's health

As I mentioned, our interviews went well with the exception of one woman who made me lose confidence in this research. She was in her mid-thirties, dressed to a T, wearing a satin dress with gorgeous embroidery and a beautiful hijab. Her features were striking, her skin not too light and not too dark, her eyes dark and seemingly full of life. I had high hopes as she walked into the room and sat down. She was pregnant and told us that her plan was to deliver at a private midwife’s clinic because she thought it was safer for her and her baby. These are the women that make me jump up and down with joy. But, as the interview continued she slipped up and told us that she actually wanted to deliver at home because it was more comfortable, and that she lied to us because she was scared. My frustration comes in that, is this happening often? Are we getting responses because women are scared or are the telling us what they think we want to hear? How many respondents are doing this? And what do I do with this woman’s interview? My initial feeling is to throw it away, which is probably what I’ll do, but it’s frustrating to think that more of our responses might have this problem and we don’t know about it.

The gorgeous landscape and rice fields of Karawang

Minas: in Photos

2011-06-27T15:00:00.000Z

I'm sharing some photos from my last few days in Minas. Not all have or need captions or comments.

Women attentively listening to a village health workers health lesson

Though not one of our respondents, I think this woman is beautiful.

Triplet Girls! Mom was only able to deliver one with the midwife and the Doctor came from about 10 km to help deliver the other 2.

This little one's face is so full of expression

Rantau Bertah

2011-06-25T13:24:00.000Z

While the elephants may have been the highlight of Minas, we still have three more days of interviews. We traveled to Rantau Bertah, which was about an hour outside of Minas on a pretty bad road, but a beautiful drive. The second half of the drive was through a heavily wooded area which I later learned belonged to a paper company - I'm hoping it'll remain beautiful for a long time. We had planned to visit a Mother's Group of pregnant women but when we arrived they hadn't yet started their meeting, so we instead headed over to a posyandu which was overflowing with women coming for their ANC checks and baby weighings. This is definitely a day I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall - with my Nikon, of course - but per usual, we were shuffled into a back room and set up for interviews.

Village health worker noting the growth progress of a baby on her growth chart

Village health worker and posyandu-goers

The antiquated baby scale that I'm certain does not produce accurate weights. And for once, I think this system of baby/children weighing is worse than the system in Mali.

We started our interviews and got many more than we had initially planned. I'll share two stories that highlighted the day in Rantau Bertah. The first is a woman, in her mid thirties who only received an elementary school education, told us about the great relationship she has with the midwife at the puskesmas. She stayed at the puskesmas for both of her births and said that she'll return there for any subsequent births as well. Despite being relatively poor, she didn't care about the costs of childbirth or anything else - she loved her midwife and wanted to be safe.

Surprising me beyond everything, this woman - with an elementary school education only - has given birth at the puskesmas twice. It proves that education level isn't the only determinant to facility-based birth, but that a woman's relationship with their health provider is greatly important.

After meeting here and hearing about her experience with the village midwife, it was great to hear that midwives are more than just baby catchers and that women feel a real connection with them. These midwifes likely offer advice and other pregnancy and birth related services. They also likely provide friendship. After having this wonderful picture painted for me of a midwife who really cares about her patients, we met our next mother. Unfortunately, this woman had possibly the worst experience with the same midwife. As she stood and bounced her newborn to avoid crying, she answered our questions and interjected her story along the way. She planned to deliver at the puskesmas and when she began to have labor pains, she walked to the facility (maybe a km or so). When she arrived, she was 6 cm dilated, but the midwife told her she wasn't ready to deliver and that she should go home and come back when it progressed. As soon as she arrived back at home, her labor pains were worse and she sent a neighbor to bring the midwife to her house. She said that when the midwife arrived, she was annoyed that she had been bothered to come after just sending the woman home. She delivered the baby, but at the same time left the mother with a terrible birthing experience.

This little girl has such a full head of black hair - she was the first infant I saw with so much hair.

Two conflicting accounts of the same midwife. Interesting how two experiences can be so different. It's also a shame that one woman had such a terrible experience that perhaps next time she is pregnant, she'll choose a traditional birth attendant to help her deliver instead of feeling disrespected by the village midwife. For her, I hope she'll take into account her safety and that of her baby, or the fact that the midwife at the puskesmas can handle simple complications that a TBA cannot. It was at this point that I ran into an ethical dilemma. Part of our research asks questions about how women are treated during their stays at facilities. With such a negligence of duty by this midwife, and not knowing if other women have had similarly poor treatment, I'm compelled to report it someone. However, I was told by more than one person that it's not my responsibility and that it's a tricky road to go down. So instead, we leave a midwife of questionable work ethic in place and do nothing. Not an easy situation.

A happy mom and health baby girl with pierced ears

Sign in the posyandu saying:
"Come to the posyandu. Keep Children Healthy. To determine the growth and development of children." And was created by the Health Promotion Improvement Project of West Sumatra in 2001

I know I said I only had two stories, but as I was writing I remembered a third. After we finished at the posyandu, we headed over to the Mother's Group - remember, the original reason we came to Rantau Bertah? - and talked to a few pregnant mothers. In this small village we found a university educated woman who I believe was a teacher. She was very petite, but I remember her being very stunning as well. Throughout the course of our conversation with her, we found that she planned to stay home to deliver her baby. I was shocked and probed a little bit more to find out. Turns out - which has actually been the case in a lot of our interviews - that she was planning on staying home to be close to her family and because it was more comfortable. She said that the only way she would go to a facility would be if her entire family could come and stay with her throughout her stay, until she was discharged.

I enjoyed Rantau Bertah, but it proved that there are always surprises around the corner.

Elephant “Conservation”

2011-06-24T11:55:00.006Z

Dooni!

During our first morning’s drive to Minas, we passed a sign that said “Elephant Conservation.” I was immediately interested and thought that if we had a free afternoon, or finished work early, that we could have a small adventure and take a look. We headed there Tuesday afternoon. The road was a little bumpy, nothing unusual, but the forested area around me kept me looking out the window, wondering if I was just going to see elephants grazing. We finally came upon the entrance and started driving toward the offices of the organization. On our left, a baby elephant was feeding next to a man who was doing some type of cultivating. This baby was so cute, I just wanted to get out and touch her! But, not knowing what type of conservation organization this is, I decided against it, thinking that she might be aggressive.

The baby elephant who greeted us upon our arrival

We continued a little further down the road and saw three adult elephants and another baby, and the office area which oddly had a circus-like grandstand and some props for elephants to do tricks on (it did not help that I had seen Water for Elephants two days prior). I was pretty confused by the grandstand and the props, but we parked the car and got out and started talking to the men that worked there. They explained that the conservation (which, for the record, I would change that name) was established and funded by the government. Elephants were shipped from all over Indonesia to this area and were then tamed and trained to be sent to zoos. My heart sank, more than a little, since I thought these animals were being rehabilitated from zoos and being returned to the wild. Again, I think the word “conservation” is a bit misleading. All in all, there were 31 elephants there that were being trained. Of the elephants that were close to us, one was being ridden by his trainer who said that he was very nice and gentle.

Dooni, with an unfortunate rider and chain that held his feet together

The trainers, getting Dooni ready for our short ride

What I loved the most was that his name was Dooni (in Bambara, this means small or slow or gentle). I was encouraged to touch Dooni and as soon as I approached him, his wet trunk started sniffing me, presumably looking for something to snack on. Since we had arrived in Minas, I hadn’t found much good food to eat, certainly not any fruit, but on our way back from the site, I saw a small market and we stopped so I could buy some mangoes and apples. They were pretty expensive and I was really looking forward to eating them, but when Doonie was expressly looking for something, I couldn’t resist but share with him! I’m not really sure what I thought, but when I offered an apple, he opened his gigantic mouth, and I was not expecting to see that. I hesitated, but eventually kind of gently placed/tossed the apple in and it was gone in a second. So much for savoring that granny smith! As soon as he swallowed it, his trunk was back, wanting more. How could I resist? So, I shared another apple, but was more comfortable putting it in his mouth this time. Since all I could really see was a lot of skin, I wondered where his teeth were – though I’m sure there was no chewing going on! – and one of the trainers opened his mouth wide to reveal these gigantic white teeth which I did not want my hands anywhere near.

Inside this gentle giant's mouth

Dooni’s skin was perfectly pachadermal – so dry and rough, and on his head right above his trunk and mouth, he had this longer, course hair. Together, they were great new textures to touch, in getting to know Dooni.

The trainers could see how enamored I was with him and asked if I wanted to ride him – uh, yeah, I was afraid you’d never ask! Of course, I was torn by this since these animals would probably never again live in their natural habitat and would constantly have humans bothering them, but nevertheless, I couldn’t say no. The trainer got off, they put on some crazy red cloth/sign for me to sit on and another trainer got on. Dooni sat down and they instructed me to step on his foot in order to get on him. It was challenging to scoot myself up to his shoulder area because he was quite wide, but I made it. Now again, I could have ridden Dooni all day, gone into the forest for lunch and dinner with him, and spent all night hanging out with him (perhaps as a result of Water for Elephants!). But, since I was with others, who really didn’t seem to care about my instant connection with Dooni, we just took a short stroll up the road and back. We took some photos and he gently sat down for me to dismount, and then the trainer pulled him back and he did a “trick” for me. At this point, all I wanted was to take Dooni home, forget about the issue of the plane and lodging –he was adorable. Of course I had more fruit and had to reward him for allowing me my small pleasure of a short ride. This time, I have him a small mango, but instead of placing it in his mouth, he actually took it from me with his trunk and fed himself – I guess the shape and texture of the mango was easier for him to handle.

This picture was taken at the point that I wouldn't let go and wouldn't stop petting Dooni

Dooni, showing off his skills

It was sad to leave, especially since we were only there for only 20 or 30 minutes. On the drive home, I thought about how great it would be to be an elephant keeper, but decided I’d have to hold off on that for my next career, though I could see doing some sort of Maternal and Child Health of elephants project.

Another baby elephant

Remarkable Women Deliver their own Babies

2011-06-24T11:41:00.005Z

The nameless and brave woman who delivered her own children.

We travelled about an hour outside of Minas to Minas Satu, where women met us at the polindes for the interviews. So far, I’ve talked about puskesmas and pustu but polindes is basically just a village health post, where the ANC clinics and Mother’s Groups take place. Of the polindes that we visited, this one was by far the least equipped. It was a small two room building, with chicken wire for a window and just a wooden table for an exam table. I’m not sure what type of ANC is done here since there was nothing else in the building. When we arrived, there were already tons of women waiting outside. The midwives put together an impromptu health session so the mother’s felt occupied before we could get to them.

Interviewing in the polindes, which you would never expect to be any type of health center from the picture

Things went more or less the same way as the previous day, but we met an incredibly brave and remarkable woman. The primary language spoken is Bahasa Indonesia, and while most ethnic groups speak Indonesian, this women was not educated and from an ethnic minority. Because of this, another mother that we interviewed translated for her. If we hadn’t been so pressed for time, I would have loved to have talked to her more. She is 41 and has had 11 births, 10 of those children have survived. She had recently delivered her 11^th. What’s remarkable about her is that she delivered all of her children at home, by herself. When asked why, she said that she was too embarrassed to deliver in front of anyone else. She was a smart woman, despite never attending school: she had a plan, were there to be any complications with her delivery. She must have taken good care of her children in order for so many of them to survive, in otherwise dismal circumstances – she was poor with so many mouths to feed. I wanted to ask her more about her life and I would have loved to have spent some time with her, but our schedule didn’t allow for it. Even though, in terms of our research, this woman will be considered an outlier, her story is really amazing. I can’t imagine giving birth alone, let alone delivering my own placenta and cutting my own umbilical cord….11 times. Perhaps what I’m even more amazed about is the fact that she and 10 of her children are still alive. The odds of maternal mortality are greatly against her.

Globally, it's rare to see father's with their children. Children are often attached to their mothers, in some form or another. I've seen a lot of father's holding their children here, and not just for the obligatory 20 minutes during the day. I try to capture this as much as possible.

Baby wrapped up in his mother's batik

As a side note, I’m not used to “parachuting” into these sites, visiting and interviewing for a few hours and leaving. It’s a real challenge for me. I’m learning about each woman for 15 to 20 minutes and then saying goodbye. What I really want to do is sit around and chat and learn about their day to day and see where they live and meet their families. There are a ton of barriers to me doing this, least of which is that I don’t speak Bahasa Indonesian. It’s hard to realize I’m not a PCV anymore, and I’m worried that I might never again have the chance to interact with people like when I lived in Mali. Then I remember that I’ll live in Mali again, and that, at the very least, my family will sit around and chat with me until we’re both bored. I get this feeling at least once a day, when I meet a really awesome woman – or more than one! – and can’t do anything to get to know her better.

This young mother waited most of the morning to interview with us, and benefited from health classes from the midwives and village health workers

This little guy was adorable, sitting on the floor while we interviewed his mother. He has a severe handicap of his legs, and as a child it's noticeable but doesn't keep him from running around. Unfortunately, there was another little boy to his left that kept kicking him.

Young girl waiting patiently for her mother's interview to end

Site Visits Begin – Minas

2011-06-24T08:42:00.005Z

Our first week of field visits begins! Originally, I wrote that I thought we’d be going to Serang, Kutai Timur and Bireun, but the plans changed. Though it hasn’t been said, since my translator is pregnant, the Jhpiego team wants to keep the field visits relatively close to the capital and without poor travel conditions. That’s not to say we haven’t found bumpy roads, but…compared to what we could find, it’s not too bad. So, the plan, or so we thought, was to go to Serang, then Karawang, Bojoengoro and finally Minas. We thought we’d leave on June 13^th for Serang, by car, but on Friday the 10^th, we were issued air tickets and told we were heading to Minas, via Pekanbaru. Talk about putting the brakes on things. I guess it didn’t really matter where we were going and in what order, but I had already written it in my planner…in pen!

We started in Minas, early, on Monday morning. We went to the main puskesmas to meet the chief midwife, Bu Yuni, and the District Health Officer (DHO), Dr. Rani. We needed Dr. Rani’s blessings to conduct our research and Bu Yuni’s knowledge and networking to help us plan our week. Bu Yuni would accompany us to most of our field visits, since she’s in charge of all of the midwives at the pustu, or assistant puskesmas, or at the village level, and also supervises the community health workers. She was very accommodating in trying to get us the exact number of women that we needed, even if it meant waiting until 4 PM to eat lunch – which it often did.

Puskesmas of Minas - smaller puskesmas' are typically one building, so I was impressed that this facility was 4 or 5 buildings.

Labor and Delivery Room - only space for one woman to deliver at a time, and if another woman needs to deliver, she delivers in the ER (see below)

Maternal waiting room - I can't think of what this is called in English, but after the women deliver, this is the room they stay in. Indonesian women typically only stay at a facility for 2-6 hours, unless there are complications.

The Emergency Room - seemingly well-equipped with the bare essentials, but it leaves a bit to be desired, from a Western stance.

Ambulance - this one is out of commission, but was previously used for emergencies

A bit about Minas: Minas is one of Jhpiego’s Chevron sites, meaning they get funding from Chevron to conduct their work. From what I understand, the majority of the work they do here are trainings for the health staff. For example, two weeks after our visit, Bu Ita, from the Jakarta office, will be visiting to do trainings on infectious disease control. Though I don’t know the extent of what Chevron is doing, in terms of their social responsibility, I do know that everywhere we drove, the beautiful landscape was broken up by nonstop oil pipelines and oil refinery stations. There was even a military-like base for the expat Chevron employees and their families. Additionally, when we drove to each of the 6 sites, we were driving on primarily paved road – and some of these sites were 30 to 40 km in the bush. Since it’s my first site visit, I don’t know how the others will compare, but I do know that Minas’ infrastructure must be a lot better off than many other districts, because of Chevron’s investment. I also learned that the research we’re doing may be helpful in writing the next proposal for Chevron’s funding in terms of supplying the health clinics, so that’s potentially good news.

One of Chevron's oil refineries, maybe 20 km from the city

After meeting with Dr. Rani and Bu Yuni, we headed out to Mandi Angin. One of the activities that Jhpiego and Chevron supports are Mother’s Groups, similar to centering groups in the US for pregnant mothers. Centering groups, I learned this past year, are similar to antenatal care checks, but instead of visiting the doctor’s office a couple of times and having 15 minutes to discuss any questions or issues, you meet with a group of women and learn from and support one another. In America I thought it sounded like a great idea, and something that would be really interesting to implement in Mali – since most women sit around and talk anyway! – but it was exciting to see it in action here. Despite not understanding Bahasa Indonesia, there were photos and workbooks that the women were all working with, and it seemed like it was working well. It’s a newly implemented activity here, so it’ll be interesting to see if/how they’re monitoring the activity and what progress the groups make. All that said, the first group of women we met were a Mother’s Group, some pregnant and some postpartum.

Mother's Group

Our research questions begin by asking some simple demographic questions to determine religion, ethnicity, education level and income level. We already assume we know certain things: women of a lower education level and lower income level are less likely to go to a facility and more likely to give birth at home. For every interview, I hoped that the women would prove this assumption wrong. In Mandi Angin, we interviewed 13 women, most of whom either planned to give birth at home or had already given birth at home. The interviews were becoming a little tedious, until we met this one woman:

My day one hero who associated facilities with increased safety

We don’t ask names during our interviews, but this women was the first of the surprises during the week. She’s in her mid-thirties and educated only though elementary school. She was one of the few postpartum women who had delivered at a facility – at the pustu – and when we asked her why she chose to deliver at the facility, as opposed to home, she responded that it was safer for her and her child. I was so pleased, I almost came to tears! After 10 interviews, I was beginning to doubt I would ever hear those words, and I was beginning to wonder if women thought or even knew it was safer to deliver at the facility.

An older postpartum mother

It was a really long first day of interviews, but it ended with sitting on a straw mat, eating rice and fish with my hands, surrounded by a group of midwives and community health workers. It felt good to be in the field.

The midwives and village health workers who were very accommodating

The Bombshell

2011-06-12T16:29:00.000Z

After two days of field testing and feeling pretty good about survey, we met with a woman named Marge Koblinsky, a great in the field of MCH who works for both John Snow Inc and is on the board of White Ribbon Alliance, who basically told us our survey was confusing and we needed to start over. This was on a Friday morning and we were scheduled to leave for our first district on Sunday. Awesome. Thankfully she had some time to lend a helping hand and all Friday morning we worked on the best approach to the data we wanted to get and finally decided that we needed to have three separate surveys, one for pregnant women, one for postpartum who delivered in facilities and one for postpartum who didn't deliver at facilities (typically home). The skip pattern we had created in the original document was too confusing to follow, which wouldn't be a problem except for that we're planning on sending the survey to two districts where other staff will administered it. Needless to say, it needs to be crystal clear. Around 1:30 on Friday we had an idea of what we needed to do, and I worked all Friday evening and Saturday to fix the three surveys and make them as perfect as possible.

In the end, Marge's help turned out to be integral to our survey. The frustrating part is that we were basically left on our own until the very last minute to create a survey, with little direction or oversight. In general there has been little coordination or direction to help us, which is odd considering the office here is interested in the results. I had hoped for more help, but I guess in the "real world" that help can come at the 11th hour and that I should be ready for last minute changes. However, my super organized, somewhat OCD personality takes issue with this. Ah, the challenges of working with others.

Field Testing Begins

2011-06-09T02:52:00.006Z

After a four day weekend of relaxing and lots of parties (two kids' birthday parties, and a party for the women's national swim team) work started again on Monday. We finished our draft survey last week and Isti contacted midwives at a local puskesmas (government-run clinic or CSCOM, depending who is reading this) and her private clinic and coordinated our visits on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

Now, first a note on the size of Jakarta and my daily patience testing with traffic. Not only is Jakarta is this ridiculously crowded city, it's also gigantic. I recently read that Jakarta - including suburbs - is 229 sq miles or 661 km²! That didn't really mean a lot to me, until I started comparing it to other places that I'm familiar with:

Washington, D.C. - 68.3 sq miles or 177 km²
Bamako - 97.3 sq miles or 252 km²
Chapel Hill - 19.82 sq miles or 51.3 km²

I mention all of this to say that the distance, in conjunction with the throngs of traffic, makes it miserable to drive in Jakarta, unless it's 1 AM. I left our office at 7:20 and arrived at my destination in Cibubur (pronounced chi-boo-bur), only 12 kms (7.5 miles) away, at 8:20. It took us another 30 minutes or so to navigate through some construction and arrive maybe 5 km away. Ridiculous. We finally arrived at the puskesmas and I was really shocked - it was palatial, compared with the clinics in Mali I'm used to. Granted its in Jakarta and has the potential to serve a very large population, but it was so nice.

Puskesmas in Cibubur

We entered to find at least one hundred people waiting for various services and moved our way though the crowd to the maternity clinic. The floor of the entrance was covered with sandals, typically taken off before entering someone's home or in this case medical facility, and after taking off my own sandals I saw a large group of pregnant women, doctors, midwives and medical and midwifery students. Isti's mother, a very well known midwife, teaches at the school where all of the midwives at this puskesmas attended, so Isti was very well received. We visited the head Doctor to get approval for our visit and explain our questionnaire's intention, and he was very open and the meeting went very smoothly. He actually invited us to come back once we finish all of our research and present to him our findings (a real breath of fresh air after dealing with Docs in Mali who are seemingly just interested in slipping some money under the table to get to do these interviews).

Pregnant women waiting for their antenatal care (ANC) visit with the midwife and doctor.

Midwifery students completing the paperwork for patient's vital signs and weight. The midwives rotate, so sometimes they work on the registration information and other times they work in the exam room with the women.

After our approval, we went back down to the maternity suite and greeted everyone again and got settled in a small corner of the office to start our questionnaire. Since these were field tests, we simply needed to test the questionnaire out on a small sample of women to determine if they understood the questions, if the questions made sense and if they were in a sensible order. Isti and I started the survey on our first patient (photo below) and determined that it took about 20 minutes to administer. Unfortunately, the ANC visits went so quickly that we soon had a line of people waiting so we decided to administer the survey to two women at once. This turned out to be a mistake, we soon found out, since some of the women were maybe too lazy to listen to the questions we were asking and instead were saying, "Yeah, I agree with her." So, lesson one learned: interview women separately.

Our first interviewee: a young woman, pregnant with her first child.

Our young pregnant mother with her medical student, listening to the fetal heartbeat. This is actually the first time I've heard a fetal heartbeat.

We wound up interviewing 10 women before I decided we had done enough. We originally planned to interview 20, but there were some errors in our questions and I thought it to be a waste of time to interview. If the questions aren't perfect, we can't use the data we collect so it was time to stop. We worked the rest of the day on improving the survey since we had interviews to do on Tuesday as well.

Immunization Chart, in Bahasa.

After we made the changes we thought were necessary, we took to the streets on Tuesday to continue. This time, we used Isti's family's private clinic as a base, and one of the midwifes at her clinic walked us through the surrounding neighborhood. The interviews here were again just tests, this time with the slightly changed questions. Of course, one of our questions asks the respondent to rate the quality of service she received with the midwife who delivered her baby, and having that midwife sitting next to her, smiling, didn't necessarily give way to the most honest responses. So, lesson number 2: have midwives help us find pregnant and postpartum women, but don't allow them to sit in on the interview.

Postpartum woman who delivered at a private clinic

We did about 5 more interviews on Tuesday and then went on a wild goose chase for my cell phone that ultimately wound up lost. Amazing how these things disappear in a matter of seconds. By the end of our two days, we thought that our survey was pretty good and ready to be put to the test out in the districts. Little did we know what would happen next....

Jakarta Weekend

2011-05-30T07:36:00.004Z

Since I arrived in Jakarta, I've been pretty underwhelmed. I'm not sure why I didn't ask more questions or prepare better (oh wait, I was super busy until the day before I left!) but I arrived feeling really unprepared to be here. I was mentally prepared for Mali, or another West African country, and soon realized that I couldn't be the farthest away from Mali. The neighborhood that I'm living and working, Kemang, is Western-central. The best supermarkets are here and all of the Western amenities - yoga studios, fast food, a Pizza Hut that looks nicer than most American restaurants, you name it. Being secluded to Kemang, I started to think that all of Jakarta was like this, and even worse that all of Indonesia was like this. Luckily, this weekend Isti and her husband Agum took me out and about.

Agung and Isti at dinner

Saturday we went to Pondok Indah Mall, which I swear is the nicest mall I've ever been to. We really came here to browse since everything was so expensive. There were two huge department stores and others like Marks and Spencer, Espirit, Mango, Zara, and too many others to remember. This mall was really two malls, connected by a walking bridge (presumably crossing the busy street below) and was super crowded as well. After going here, I pretty much hated Jakarta and just wanted to get out of town. It's nice to have the option of going to a mall - there are no malls, and nothing even comparable to a mall in Mali - but consumerism has really taken over here.

Saturday's excursion wasn't planned, Isti just showed up to pick me up. Sunday, however, we had planned to go shopping after we went to a wedding. When I found out we were going to a wedding, I was super excited (since I still haven't been to any weddings as an adult except for my own) and it was an Indonesia wedding! After Isti and Agum picked me up, we started driving to East Jakarta and I finally got outside of Kemang. Jakarta is certainly more developed than I'm used to, with highways and tolls and the like, but it was great to see fruit vendors lining the streets at the big bus station, people selling their goods while weaving in an out of traffic, and driving through what I can only compare to downtown Bamako and Grande Marche area. I felt at home and immediately reconnected to this foreign place that I was starting to dislike. As a wedding guest, we arrived to greet and eat and then leave. Of course I snapped a shot of the lovely bride and groom.

Chandra and Indiri - Indiri is Isti's cousin from her father's side.

After the wedding outting, we drove through Central Jakarta to South Jakarta to the Ambassador Mall and then Plaza Semanggi for dinner. Since Jakarta has a population of almost 12 million, you can imagine the insanity of traffic and parking. At the Ambassador Mall, we entered the parking lot, but just kept driving until the 5th level (there were no options for parking below that) and excited to start looking. The cars were packed in and some shoppers even left their cars in neutral so the parking attendants could move them, in a straight line of course, if necessary. I think this mall had 7 or 8 levels and the stores weren't as glamorous as the previous day, but much more in our budget. Since a lot of the clothing industry invests in South/Southeast Asian countries for their manufacturing, this mall had "seconds" from stores like Banana Republic, H&M and Zara, but everything was super tiny (probably why they were seconds).

View of South Jakarta, from either the 5th or 6th level of parking at Ambassador Mall.

View of South Jakarta from Plaza Semanggi at dusk.

It was nice to finally see a bit more of Jakarta than I had seen in the previous week, and it gave me hope that our trips out to the districts will be fruitful and full of lots of work. I think Jakarta is a nice city to come to after 2 months in the field (much the same way I felt about Bamako), but right now it just feels a little bit too much like America to me.

Midwives

2011-05-30T06:00:00.006Z

Though it hasn't even been one week in Jakarta, it feels like it's been two! I went to work the day after I arrived and met my translator, Ibu Isti along with some of my co-workers. Isti is a bidan, or midwife, who works her family's private clinic. She's also a former member of Indonesia's national women's basketball team member, and translator extraordinaire. Isti went to medical school but decided to become a midwife instead.

Midwifery in Indonesia is really widespread, and in fact there are too many midwives. Previously, the midwifery schools had better standards, but they've popped up everywhere making it very easy, and pretty inexpensive to get a certificate/degree. Midwifery jobs are pretty easy to come by, and midwives can either work independently as village midwives, work at government-run clinics and hospitals, or work privately in their own, or others', clinics. Access to medical care is different in Jakarta, but in the rural areas, many women still give birth at home with traditional birth attendants (women with no formal education) and consequently the maternal mortality rate (MMR) is still very high for Asian countries. More and more, women are using midwives, private clinics or government-run clinics, but the numbers are still dismally low. In January of this year, the government created an free insurance scheme called jampersal that makes it free for women to go to both public and private facilities to give birth. Once the facility claims the birth, they government reimburses them. The problem is that many women still don't know about this free service and so they aren't using it. I hope that we can educate women about it and encourage them to go to facilities instead of staying at home.

Not surprising, the cost of giving birth is much lower than in the US. But the prices vary depending on if you stay at home with a TBA or with a midwife, if you go to a public facility or to a private facility. The cost can range from 250,000 rupiah (RP) to 1,000,000 RP (approximately $27 to $120). One of the problems with jampersal is that the government will only reimburse 350,000 RP so the private clinics that normally earn 750,000 for one birth are having a difficult time and are trying to discourage the use of jampersal in their clinics.

Isti and I are working on a survey to ask women about their perceptions of giving birth in a facility. We are going to investigate the different reasons (cost, transportation, cultural values, etc) that influence women's decisions. Few surveys have been conducted about women's perceptions of health care, but we found a few that helped us to create the survey.

We're now in the final stages of creating the survey and we'll meet to discuss the content and to decide which districts we're going to visit to deliver the survey. The MCHIP project works in three districts in Indonesia: Bireun in Aceh, Kutai Timor in Kalimantan and Serang in Java. The map below isn't very detailed, but Bireun is just east of Banda Aceh, Kutai Timor is north of Samarinda and Serang is due West of Jakarta near the dot for Merak.

Hopefully we'll know our destinations and schedule today or tomorrow and can plan our interview schedule. Isti has worked as a translator with three other midwife volunteers here and I'm really looking forward to working with her and learning from her.

Welcome to America.....er, Jakarta

2011-05-26T07:52:00.000Z

As the jetlag has finally worn off and I have feeling in my lower limbs again, it's time to welcome you all to America, er Jakarta, Indonesia. The introduction says it all, I think, but suffice it to say that things aren't that different from a big city in the US here - Probably more NY or LA, as opposed to DC or Philadelphia. I arrived pretty late on Wednesday night and got through customs, immigration and baggage claim with no problem. I exchanged some money and headed to the taxi stand where instead of getting the nice black Mercedes to take me to me to town, I essentially wound up in the back of someone's minivan praying the entire 50 minute drive that I was going to arrive at my destination, not at a brothel. Talking to the taxi driver and coordinator was my first sign that I was in a foreign land. I'm pretty sure I slipped into negotiating in Bambara when he told me the price was 280,000 Rupiah (about $30, but it sounded like WAY more in my head). So we set off to Kemang, the neighborhood/district of Jakarta where I'm staying. This big city - of which only a fraction I actually saw - introduced me to brand new cars (including the bright green Mazda 2!), Harley Davidson, Starbucks galore, and huge shopping malls touting Burberry, Gucci and the likes. The whole time I'm thinking, "Okay, did I really get off the plane in Jakarta?" Once we arrived in Kemang, essentially the foreigner area of Jakarta, it really turned into little-America. KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut, and then some other random foreign restaurants like an Irish Pub, German Beer Garden and endless Dim Sum choices. Trying to take it all in, we eventually arrived at my abode and I couldn't have been happier. All I really needed was a horizontal sleeping surface and water to feel human again.

By way of where I'm staying - the Chief of Party (Director of the project, for those of you not familiar with "aid-speak") for the MCHIP Project, Anne, has graciously offered her guest room for my stay. Her family is sweet and her pool looks inviting, though the weather hasn't been too awesome yet.

All in all, my arrival was exactly what I would have expected a 12:00 AM after a 29 hour trip - interesting. I'm looking forward to exploring a bit more of the city and starting on work. More to come!

Traveling Alone in SE Asia

2009-05-13T04:56:00.001Z

"Yeah, traveling alone can be like that - sometimes amazing, sometimes uninspiring." Spoken by a great friend who I'm sure, like many of us, has traveled on his own. This isn't my first time traveling alone, but it is - so far - my lonliest and most uninspiring. I'm in Thailand for the moment and I can't think of a place I'd rather not be. Nothing about the country has excited or thrilled me to the point of wanting to stay. I counter in my head, well, it'd be different if I were with someone else, but I don't think it would be. I think I chose the wrong places to visit, I think I wasn't positive of what I wanted to see while here, and in the end, it has been uninspiring and almost regretful. Another friend told me, "Skip Thailand, go to Laos instead." I had barely even heard of Laos, but I had heard all of these amazing things about Thailand. Next time, I'm going to Laos.

I wanted friends and/or family to come along, and several people were interested in coming, but the timing just didn't work out. I'm one of the only people I know that had a little bit of money and more time on their hands than she knows what to do with. I couldn't miss the opportunity to take this trip now, not knowing what the future might bring. My plans of going home to the States and working and starting a family in the next couple of years will certainly thwart any month-long vacation to some secluded corner of the world. Plus, with the international economic situation, who knows what the situation of my bank account will be. It really is the perfect time for me to be here - except, I'm alone.

So, how do I get out of this alone funk? How do I 'make the best of it' without reminding myself how much cooler Southeast Asia would be with a friend from DC or Mali or my Mom or sister? I have a lot of hope for Cambodia considering I based my entire trip around going there, and I know it will be better than Thailand has been. Seeing the amazing ruins of Angkor Wat and then immersing myself in dark history that has fallen upon Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge years - though a bit depressing - is interesting to me. I'm also going to the beach in Cambodia. We're not talking white sands and crystal clear waters, but we're talking about a place that not many tourists go to - a definite plus.

I'll write more about my travels in Cambodia and Vietnam and hope that things will change. In the end though, I think I'm just so used to life/culture in Africa that this is a completely wild experience for me. Maybe I should have traveled to a new region of Africa, like southern Africa. Next time, I probably will.

Talk to My Hand

2009-04-22T10:13:00.003Z

So, in teaching Baba English, I've started teaching him some common phrases. But while walking around in Dakar, I remembered back to the day when we used to say "Pshaw" or "Talk to the hand." So, I taught him "talk to the hand" which he transformed into "talk to my hand" with a dictatorial accent. Hilarious. Enjoy.

Dakar - The Paris of Africa

2009-04-09T13:23:00.001Z

Dakar is the Paris of Africa. I’m not kidding. People are dressed to the 9’s, very fashionable. Skinny jeans and tight shiny tshirts that cling to only one shoulder. Designer bags and sunglasses add to the shine. It doesn’t matter that most of the stuff is knock off – it still has those shining double CCs or GA or Gucci plastered on it. Name brands, that’s all people really care about. The buildings are tall and constructed primarily out of cement, not mud. The roads are all paved and clean – the city actually hires people to sweep. The sewers are covered and there’s no chance of accidentally falling in. The ocean sits adjacent to the city offering a splendid breeze to take away the sting of the hot Senegalese sun. There are over and underpasses. There is a 4 lane highway. Simply put, there is money. Things cost the same price, if not more, in Dakar than they do in America (at least the last time I was there). A kilo of bananas, the equivalent of $1.25. 2 lbs of bananas in the States, last time I bought them, was about $1. But that’s just one example. We were told by the people we stayed with, friends of Baba’s, that a normal apartment in Dakar costs 600,000 CFA per month – that’s about $1,200! That’s ridiculous. Seeing that a nice apartment in Bamako is between 100 and 200,000 CFA, 600 is just outrageous to me. There are so few motorcycles in Dakar – everyone drives a car. I’m not talking about the cars from 1957 that have been rebuilt 39 times in Mali. I’m talking about brand spanking new SUVs, BMWs and Mercedes. I saw an Infiniti dealer in Dakar for God’s sake. Really?

But my main question is, where does all this money come from? It was Baba’s first time going to Dakar and he was blown away. I mean blown away. He kept saying how the only thing lacking in Dakar are stop lights and a metro and as soon as it has those two things, it’ll be on par with Paris. He kept saying how Abdoulaye Wade, president of Senegal, really knows how to work and that our own president, Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT), is zero a la base, meaning that he doesn’t do anything. Baba went so far to say that if a bunch of Malians went to Dakar and saw how developed and how built up it was, they would revolt against ATT. It was pretty amazing to hear him talking about it. But, on the other hand, those are his political views. If you look at Senegal as a whole, it’s in a pretty sad state. Even 15 km outside of Dakar, the roads are unpaved and there’s no development. Every penny that President Wade found has gone into the development of Dakar. Last year, when I was in Dakar, there had just been this big conference called ODI. Basically, this group of Islamic countries got together for a conference and Senegal took tons of loans – I don’t know the amounts, but in the millions and possibly billions – and interest free to help the development of Senegal. But as I said, it’s all gone to Dakar, not to the rest of the country that could really use it. It’s disappointing for me.

All of this is to create a background for an entry I want to write about the visa process and immigrating to the US. The two days that Baba and I were at the Embassy were very interesting and odd. I’ll write more about this soon.

Baba's Coming to America!

2009-04-09T10:38:00.003Z

Baba's US visa!

I’ve just completed my 4th trip to Dakar, this time on my own terms - and with Baba in tow. We spent about 10 days there and had a great time. The main purpose was to go and have our interview for the immigrant visa to go to the US. I was so nervous about it, but in the end it turned out wonderfully! We arrived at the Embassy at 7 AM only to be told that the photos we brought were the incorrect dimensions, and therefore we would have to go find a photo shop open to take new photos. At 7 AM nothing was open and the first place didn’t open until 8. I was discouraged. 7 AM and problems already? Despite having a perfect set of documents to hand over to the Embassy officials, I felt that the photo issue was a foreboding warning.

We arrived back at the Embassy around 8:30 and were finally allowed to enter. Unlike the US Embassy in Bamako, I wasn’t harassed about why I wanted to enter my own Embassy, but things went rather smoothly. Then came the waiting. After three and a half hours of sitting and waiting they finally called Baba’s name. This was it: he was going to be interviewed and we were going to get our visa (insh’allah). He was asked to swear to the accuracy of the documents that we gave them and then the questions started. “Where did you meet Sara?” “How long has she lived in Mali?” “What are your plans when you go to America?” “What are Sara’s plans?” “Where are you living?” “Does Sara have any siblings? If so, where do they live?” “Have you met members of Sara’s family yet?” The questions were amazingly simple, especially compared to the questions that other Africans seeking their visas were being asked. While I could hear all of the questions being asked of Baba, we couldn’t see each other – which was probably for the best. Each time he would get an answer just a little bit wrong (ie, saying that I moved to Mali in August 2006 instead of July), I would cringe and I was sure that that was the end of our visa searching. After about 10 minutes of me cringing, I heard the interviewer say, “Okay, come back on Tuesday on 2.” Come back on Tuesday at 2? What does that even mean? So I immediately shot up from my chair and went to the window asking, “Tuesday? 2? What does it all mean? Do we find out Tuesday if we got it or?!?!” I was like a frantic animal, it was pretty embarrassing. She looked at me, very sympathetically and said, “You’ve passed the interview, don’t worry.” The proverbial 100 lbs were lifted off of my shoulders. We passed? Are you serious? I wasn’t sure I believe it all. We spent $800 on the visa alone and waited for almost 4 hours and we passed. Baba and I just looked at each other and smiled.

Once we excited the Embassy, I was practically jumping up and down with excitement and Baba was just as smooth and cool as ever. I kept asking him, “Are you excited? Are you excited?” “Yes, Fatoumata, I’m very excited!” was his response. I didn’t quite believe him at first, but I know that he’s stoked. I called my Mom and Sister and said, “Baba’s coming to America!” They’re excitement was awesome too.

I tried teaching Baba the art of the jumping photo - not too shabby! Visa in hand, it would have been better infront of the Embassy, but this is a start!

So, in a few months, we’ll be in North Carolina – now it’s for sure!

Last Day in PC!!!

2009-03-27T15:17:00.000Z

31 Months
124 Weeks
868 Days
124 Malaria Prophylaxis Pills
2 Trips Home
84 Pills Treating Amoebas
~800 meals consisting of rice
Uncountable amount of mosquito repellent used
~500 Days of sleeping under the stars
3 Different Homes
7 West African Countries
300 hours spent traveling to Bamako and back
$6,975 – the amount of money I’ve earned in the last 31 months
Uncountable number of people I will remember and times I will cherish

These are just a few things I’m reflecting upon my last week and last day in the Peace Corps. Today, Friday, March 27, 2009 marks the end of an era in my life. I’m done with Peace Corps. That’s a pretty striking statement for me, considering this has been my life for the last 2.5 years. I feel extremely accomplished and satisfied with my time here, though much of it has had its ups and downs. I honestly can’t imagine where I’d be or what I’d be doing today if I hadn’t been in Mali. My friends and other volunteers have been asking me, “So! How do you feel?” On Sunday, after a 9 hour, sweltering hot bus ride my answer was, “My back hurts…” I had no idea what they were asking me. “No, how do you feel about being done?” “Oh, that…” I replied. It’s a little strange for me being done because normally when you Close of Service (COS), you fly out to America at the end of the week. I’m flying out, but not to America, and I’ll be back and forth in Mali until the end of June. So, I feel great, but I haven’t had to do the preparations for leaving my family and friends and I haven’t cried yet about leaving, which will happen. I’ve also had so much else to think about – Baba and I are flying to Dakar on Saturday to start our immigration visa process! Please keep your fingers crossed and have good thoughts for us all next week. When I know anything, you will too!

The good news and results that have been part of my COS week are keeping me pretty happy. I did language tests in both French and Bambara – though I was pretty sure my Bambara was about as good as yours – and I scored Advanced High in French and Intermediate High in Bambara. Just keep in mind I’ve never really been taught Bambara, it’s all been picked up by talking to people and spending time with them. Where else would learning some random African language have been so important? So, those two scores were very much to my liking. I also don’t have tuberculosis, which is a pretty positive thing! I also look very much forward to this afternoon when Baba comes to pick me up. Now that I’m officially no longer a PCV, I get to hop on his moto (with my helmet!) and speed off to some unknown destination. Alright, it’s not that exotic, but it’s making me feel pretty damn good.

Well, I just wanted to share a rather positive week with all you at home who have been so supportive throughout my time here. I promise I’m coming back soon! I sent out an email asking anyone about traveling awhile back, and I just want everyone to know that on April 28th, I leave Paris, France for India, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and I can’t wait! It’s going to be an amazing trip. You’re all still invited if something were to change, like law school ended 2 months early. I know, probably not, but… I look forward to talking and seeing you in June!

MALI: Students left behind in race for education MDG

2009-02-22T12:16:00.002Z

Mali stories are so few and far between that I wanted to share this...

BAMAKO, 6 February 2009 (IRIN) - As Mali's government makes strides toward the Millennium Development Goal of primary education for all by 2015, increased school enrolment and the resulting shortage of teachers and classroom space have blocked a growing number of students from secondary education.

In 2008, some 17,000 students out of more than 80,000 who passed their secondary school exams, known as the diplôme d'étude fondamentale (DEF), were not admitted to secondary schools, according to the Ministry of Education.
About 40 percent of the group is female.

Turned away

Mariam Coulibaly, 17, told IRIN she received her DEF in June 2008 in the capital Bamako. But she said her name was not included two months later on a list of students assigned to secondary schools for the 2008-09 academic year.

"The [secondary school] director told me that I had passed the age cut-off of 16 years," Coulibaly said. "I asked him what I could do and he said that he was sorry [that he could not help]." She told IRIN she had been forced to repeat a year because of illness.

Three criteria for secondary school admission in Mali are the DEF, the student's age, and the student's academic performance, according to the Ministry of Education.

Coulibaly's father, Arouna Coulibaly, told IRIN it is "unjust and paradoxical" that the government did not advance his daughter. "They [government] encourage us to send our children, especially our girls, to school.

"They [students] are then told to leave under the pretext they are too old. Can the school not teach students of all ages?" Arouna Coulibaly said. The student's mother, Rokiatou Sow, told IRIN the family was forced to enrol Mariam in a private school in October 2008. "She has become a burden for our family. If we did not pay for her secondary education, what would become of her?"

Coulibaly's parents said they are paying US$600 per year for the next four years for her to study accounting. Students do not pay to attend state-funded secondary schools.

The average salary in Mali was $500 in 2007, according to the World Bank.

The local non-profit, Coalition for the Defence of Children's Rights, told IRIN that not advancing students who receive their DEF, especially girls, is a "flagrant abuse" of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Mali signed in 1990. "Children have a right to study to the end," said coalition member Almadi Cissé.

Coping

The government is aware of the "severity" of the problem, according to the Minister of Basic Education, Sidibé Aminata Diallo. "The number of students not advancing [to secondary schools] who have their DEF is becoming more problematic every year," said the minister.

"The growing student population is a result of the government's emphasis on increasing primary school enrolment."

Mali's government adopted the UN Millennium Development Goal, set in 2000, to increase primary school enrolment for all and basic education for young adults by 2015.

Basic Education Minister Diallo said there are not enough classrooms or secondary school teachers to accommodate the swelling enrolment. From 2002 to 2007, the percentage of girls enrolled in primary school increased from 56 percent to 68 percent and boys from 78 percent to 88 percent, according to the government.

Diallo told IRIN students who do not continue to secondary schools are not being "thrown to the streets." The minister said the government is constructing more vocational training centres to address the problem.

The minister estimated 35 percent of primary school students will not meet criteria to attend secondary schools in 2010.

A Return to Boidie

2009-02-21T12:18:00.003Z

The sad circumstances of the death of Baba's mother brought our return to Boidie, a village and group of people I absolutely love. Baba called on Monday to say that Kadia was sick, but she got better. Tuesday night I received a text message saying she'd died. She was having pains in her head, that would move to her heart and then to her stomach. After some blood work and IVs, she got better, and then fell ill again. In Muslim fashion, she was burried on Wednesday at 4 PM.

Kadia was Baba's father's 1st wife. She was about 80 years old and a very sweet old woman. In Baba's house growing up, he and his brothers and sisters (those who had Oumou as a Mom) lived with Kadia and Kadia's kids lived with Oumou. It was a sort of way of easing the tensions between the two households because oftentimes co-wives don't get along. So, in most senses, Kadia raised Baba.

Though I only met Kadia once, all of her kids and everyone in Boidie spoke so highly of her. Because I didn't know her well, I feel like I've lost something more than normal. I've lost the opportunity to know the woman who raised my husband and I've missed the opportunity to hear about all of the crazy antics he got into as a kid. I've resolved that after my PC service is finished, I'm going to go to Boidie for about 10 days and just spend time with his brothers, sisters, his mother, and the rest of the village. I'll listen to the stories they have to tell me and parttake in their daily affairs. I really look forward to this.

Kadia - Allah ka nogoyake. Allah ka hine ala. Allah ka da yoro suman. We'll see each other again.

A Note on Bargaining in America

2009-01-25T01:31:00.002Z

To get right to it, I'm a damn good bargainer here in Mali. A vendor of whatever will give me a price and it's rare I can't get him/her down more than half the price. It's a fine tuned art that many American's are uncomfortable with. It's just not something we have to deal with everyday.

While in DC, feeling in my element, I decided to try bargaining. I tried three times and failed all three times. The first time was a taxi ride - he wouldn't budge. The second time was at Jumbo Slice - I tried to get a free slice. The guy went back and forth with me and acted like he was going to bargain. But the total was $14.50 and I put $10 on the counter. He proceeded to ask me where the rest was. I asked him where my deal was and he said, "Well, you're getting the box for free." Hmm, last time I checked, a cardboard box came with take out pizza.

I was a little disappointed that it didn't work at all. And, I'm nervous about what the future holds for me an my remarkable bargaining skill. Will it die altogether if I re-establish myself in America? Will I ever be able to use it again? I think Farmer's Markets are fair game, but where else?

Suggestions are welcomed and appreciated!

Ameriki Greatness Part III: The District

2009-01-25T00:57:00.002Z

I left NC with 5 days left in America and I can't imagine a better way to have spent them than in the last place I called home - DC! Though I was back in the States in February and March of 2007, I haven't seen any of my friends since May/June of 2006. The reunion was well overdue and I couldn't wait.

The theme of the long weekend was: Sara out on the town. Friday night, the GW crowd got together at Cafe Citron and while it was delightful to see everyone, I was shocked that few wanted to continue the dinner party and transform it into a real party. Lana, roommate and friend extrodinnaire and Megan, study abroad pal and travel parter in Europe, accompanied me out to The Park, a new bar/club in DC. Not going to lie, I had a fabulous time! Music that I've missed for 2 years came blaring back into my ears - so much that I had ringing in my ear for 2 days afterward! - and dancing with the ladies was a great time. Photographic evidence does exist of the debauchery that night and for your viewing pleasure we have a before and an after shot of the 3 of us:

Megan, Lana and me, getting ready to get the party started.

Lana, Megan and me - Hot, sweaty and more than a little tipsy thanks to Lana "knowing the bartender."

After leaving and Megan telling a police officer that some random man said her boots were ugly, it was evident we needed to get into a cab. We all got home safely and regretted the amount that was consumed the next day!

I had to recover most of Saturday and didn't leave the house until the evening, when it was time to go out and have a smaller repeat of the Friday night. Paul, my best friend in the whole world, didn't have to work, so we decided to hit up Nelly's and then go to Town. Some Peace Corps friends came to Nelly's and we chatted about the good ole' days - the ones I'm still living - and they talked about how America and Mali just aren't the same. Having been away from Mali for so long, it was good to see them and prepare myself for my return.

Isabelle, Liz, me and Lindsey

Paul and I hung around Nelly's for awhile awaiting the barrage of men who would shortly be making their way over to the newest, hottest club around. We probably danced for 2 or 3 hours and Paul was less than sober when we caught a cab and headed for Adam's Morgan. But not for more drinking. If not for more drinking, than what would one actually head to Adam's Morgan for at 2:30 AM? Oh right, JUMBO SLICE! Now, if you've never enjoyed a piece of Jumbo Slice, seriously consider a vacation to DC and a long, fun night in Adam's Morgan. Just look at the size of these slices!

Paul and me - You're the best friend I'll have!

Check it out!

How could you not be thrilled for Jumbo Slice?

"Jumbo" is no exaggeration! I still don't know how Paul ate 2!

Needless to say, seeing everyone was refreshing and catching up to see where everyone has landed is also interesting. Some are where they wanted to be, others aren't, but they're still happy. It gives me hope for not being absolutely positive of what I'm going to do.

To everyone, thanks for showing me a great time.
To Paul - I love you and I'm so proud of you. I can't wait to see you again.

And she's back to Mali....

Ameriki Greatness Part II: NC

2009-01-16T00:31:00.000Z

This photo should have a website all to it's own. After 20 months, the glorious, succulent taste of a chicken fajita burrito from Chipotle has a rendez-vous with my taste buds. This was by far a headline of the trip.

Despite the white knuckled trip from TN to NC, I was very excited to arrive there. My plans for post-PC include moving to the Raleigh/Durham area before continuing with Grad School in 2010. Despite having visited before, I looked forward to checking out my new stomping grounds. It was also going to give me a chance to hang out with Emilee before she returned to South Carolina for school to start again. We all had a great time together, going bowling, playing air hockey, shopping the after Christmas sales, making dinner together and playing monopoly and bumming around in general. Beth was sick and highly contagious, so her Dr. asked her not to go to work and infect everyone around her. Therefore, more time was had with her too! Em, it was great seeing you and spending time together. I can't wait until I'm there and you can come spend double the time in NC hanging out with not only one, but two very cool Aunts!

Em and Beth in the bowling mood.

Air hockey - best game in the world, hands down!

And my short sister who can barely reach the puck. Poor thing! Though, this is an inventive way of playing the game.

Since when are 15 year old nieces supposed to be taller than 24 year old Aunts? I'm even wearing heels!

NC also gave me my first visit to Trader Joe's - or Trader Ming, depending on the ethnicity of food you're buying. I instantly fell in love with the goodness I've only heard of for so long.

After Emilee left, Beth and I had a little over a week in order to get lots done. There was chilling that needed to happen, movies that needed to be watched, books that needed to be read, a wedding who's plans needed to be started, and there was of course lots of EATING that needed to be done. The amount of food we ate was terrible! We'd both come home after eating out and say, "Okay, I don't need to eat until next Thursday," yet we'd find ourselves delighting just the next day. I don't regret any of it...it was only 8 lbs in a month - which honestly, is not bad at all! Thanks a million to you, Beth, for making my stay amazing and fattening. I can't wait to get back and see you more often and hang out all the time in Durham!

My amazing sister, Beth, with her amazing new haircut! Love you!

Ameriki Greatness Part I: The Arrival and TN

2009-01-09T23:41:00.001Z

In dire need of a vacation, I board a flight from Bamako to Dakar. I'm also in need of medical attention that can't be taken care of in Mali, so I'm off to Dakar first. I miss Tabaski, the best holiday in Mali, because I'm in Dakar. Saving grace? Mary Virginia. Where was I? Right, so then after 24 hours of Grey's Anatomy, I board the majestic Delta flight from Dakar to Atlanta. It's almost 4 AM, I'm tired, but I want to watch movies because it's been so long. Didn't happen. I couldn't concentrate at all! 9 hours later I'm in Atlanta. Sensory overload! I don't know what to do...there are white people everywhere and more options than I can imagine in terms of shopping and eating. I hurry to my new terminal and wait, surveying many passers-by to see what good they've just purchased. I finally settle on a Starbucks Peppermint Mocha. I retreat back to the gate only to watch it pour rain outside. But wait, it's December? How is there rain? Oh right, I'm in a country where it can rain any day of the year, not only for 2 months during "rainy season." I'm overwhelmed by a lot during my first hours in America but I do my best to overcome the uneasiness.

These were my first few hours and they were difficult. I hadn't been back to America in 20 months and it was quite shocking. But that was it...I was back in America. After 20 long months of Peace Corps, I was ready for a vacation. I finally arrived in TN around 7PM and was so excited to see my Mom! I didn't stay up too late because I had a hair appointment first thing the next day. Trust me, if you had seen my hair you would have done the same thing! It hadn't been cut in 2 years. Scary.

The new 'do - swangs and the use of a curling iron. Genius.

2 days later my Aunt Liz was coming to visit, but I didn't know that I'd be surprised by my brother and nephew also! Liz, Rick and Eli all flew down from NY to say hey and see me which was really unexpected. We had a pleasant weekend together hanging out at home, playing Scrabble (who knew 9 year olds played Scrabble?) and went to a Christmas parade and celebration in my Mom's town.

Rick and Eli arrive at the airport to greet me and Mom! I last saw Eli in 2006 and barely recognized him now.

My handsome nephew, school Aunt Liz in Scrabble. He's so cute.

I was more shocked/enthralled by this horse due to its size! Malian horses are scrawny! They were giving horse carriage rides but Santa wasn't too jolly when we arrived 3 minutes late - he said no more rides.

Mom and her best friend Liz!

Their departure brought about the arrival of my Grandmother, and then right before Christmas my sister and niece drove out from North Carolina. It was a really great Christmas gift to have the opportunity to see everyone in my family. Though I saw Mom and Beth recently when they came to visit in Mali, I haven't seen my niece Emilee since my high school graduation in 2002! Needless to say, it was so shocking to see her - she's 15 now! Nonetheless, it was great to get reacquainted with her as an adult and to talk about how cool it is to live in Africa! We had a pretty stellar Christmas and I got to hand out all of my African wares. I think everyone was pretty happy and I was too.

Mom should have been a baker! Her cakes and cookies are gorgeous and tasty! This is in preparation for our trip to Nashville to visit family.

This is the power of being named Sara - you're able to show up wearing the same outfit. This is my cousin Sara and this is the second time we've shown up wearing the same outfit. The Power of Sara!

Mom with her red leather clutch made by Diakite here in Mali. She loved it!

Grandma with a photo of Baba and I.

Emilee and Beth - thrilled to be wearing antlers!

Pretty awesome to have 4 generations of the Rosen's all together at one time! A photographic opportunity indeed! Me, Mom, Beth, Grandma and Emilee.

On December 26th, my sister sick with bronchitus, Beth, Emilee and I got in the car and I drove them back to NC through the Smoky Mountains. Now, I could go on about how I haven't driven in 2 years and I had to drive through the mountains, etc., but suffice it to say I was white knuckled most of the way! Yikes.

Just a special shout out thanks to Mom. You made my trip home awesome and even though we didn't get any "Mom/Daughter" time together, we'll have plenty of it to come in the future. Mix in a little momliness and it'll all be alright. Miss you and love you!

A Tribute to a Great Friend

2008-12-03T22:41:00.001Z

Cristina Nardone

January 15, 1982 to December 02, 2008

Sometimes Mali is hard, sometimes it's easy. Whether it was difficult or easy you were always there to encourage me. I met you one of my first days in Mali and we immediately formed a bond that was strong. You helped me get comfortable in a country where I didn't know left from right. I was elated when I found out we would be regionmates. You were so strong and I knew I'd make it if I had your personality around me all the time. You came to visit me and gave me pointers on how best to succeed with my projects. I admired all of the work you had done, all of the relationships you built. Some people say that your eyes are the windows to your soul. Your eyes are beautiful, but for me it's your smile that reveals everything. You never let Mali defeat you, even if you got mad. You always bounced back from minor things that held the rest of us down. You came to help and change peoples’ lives and you did more than you'll ever know. I think of myself as a strong person, but I don't know I would have made it in Mopti region without your words of wisdom to stay there. In the end, it was the best decision I've ever made. I want you to know that you will always be one of the most missed people in my and our lives. We miss you and we love you and we will think about you and your spirit and your way of dealing with everyday situations in our everyday lives. I've already started to introduce some of your habits into my own and I only hope that I can be as true to them as you would have been.

Thinking of you forever and may you rest in peace in El Salvador and in our hearts and minds.

World AIDS Day in Mali

2008-12-01T22:01:00.001Z

December 1st is World AIDS Day. It's a day to bring about awareness of HIV/AIDS and to encourage testing and education about the disease. In Africa, it's that much more important. However, most people think that the entirety of Africa is plagued by the disease. Southern Africa, including South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho - to name a few - are the countries most plagued with prevalence rates as high as about 40%. However, in West Africa, the rates aren't nearly as high. Here in Mali, for example, the rate is about 2.1% - a far cry from 40%.

Because I'm not working on a community health initiative, I had the idea that we should have an event for World AIDS Day. We're in the process of building a clinic and we're trying to get the word out to the community that we are an organization that is here to help and promote better health practices. We've mainly been focusing on malaria because it's a huge problem here in Mali, but I felt we had a chance to branch out. We invited a local organization call DJEKAFO along with CESAC who does HIV testing. The information that was given out was helpful and we had a decent turnout. Convincing Malian's to get HIV tested is pretty difficult, but we were able to get 40 volunteers!

DJEKAFO presenting their educational materials on HIV/AIDS and explaining the importance of knowing your status and not judging those around you who may be HIV positive.

Oumou Camara, a member of the microfinance committee, and Madame Niare - both CHAG members - waiting for community members to arrive.

Later in the afternoon, we had a tombola (raffle) and a football (soccer) game to get more people out. If there's anything that can pull a crowd, it's a football game. So, we got the word out early and sold tickets for the tombola - all of the proceeds going to the community's contribution for their new clinic - and raffled off buckets filled with needed goods: spaghetti, sugar, milk, notebooks, pens, etc. We raised about 60,000 CFA ($120) in the raffle! During the selling of the final tickets, a pretty awesome game was had. Because of the political differences between the neighborhoods that we work in, there was a lot riding on the game in terms of pride. Sikoroni played Sourakabougou and Sourakabougou won!

Team Sikoroni wearing shirts donated from ChocoMali.

Team Sourakabougou wearing our World AIDS Day shirts.

It was a great day and it was nice to see our Community Health Action Group (CHAG) get involved and spread the world and get the community to give back to themselves in the form of their clinic. It's been an uphill battle, but I think we're getting there!

The football field, with mini Dogon Country in the background.

An action shot of a great game.

Thanks to all the members of Sikoroni and Sourakabougou and the members of CHAG and MHOP for making today a successful day!

Hard Work: Mali vs America

2008-11-20T21:01:00.003Z

What's a hard days work in America? While there are several different levels of working - retail, restaurants, offices, manual labor, etc - we each feel as if we put in a hard day's work everyday, right? Even when I was living in Washington, my senior year of college, I was going to school full time and working part time while running a conference the other part time. I considered myself pretty busy. An active day would consist of waking up in my comfortable heated/air conditioned room, checking my email, showering with hot water, eating breakfast or heading out the door to catch the metro to work where I would grab a Starbucks and normally proceed to sit on my butt for the next several hours doing what I called "work." After those hours, I'm sure I would eat some lunch, chill, check my email about a billion times and just hang out. After lunch I would head back to GW, have a class or two, walk around a bit, grab another coffee or a Diet Coke and continue up to the 4th floor of Marvin Center and sit in the IAS office, sometimes doing WAMUNC work, often just sitting around talking. By the time I made it home, sometimes it was late, but I would sit and watch an episode of Family Guy, sit in front of my computer and talk on the phone until it was time for bed. Tough day, huh?

Now, I admit that there were days that were much harder than this one - and we've all had hard days. But lets be honest, we've all had easy days too. Isn't it funny though that with this account above, I would consider it a hard day? Can you imagine what I would have considered it had I actually been doing work?

Well, in Mali, a typical workday is quite different. I know that I've been here for 2 years, but living in Bamako brings a vastly new perspective to things. Bamako, more than New York than DC, is the city that Malian's come to in order to make money. Like any person growing up in Small Town, USA, one thinks that moving to the big city is easy and is going to solve all of life's problems. Well, it doesn't. I've had a lot of work to do in Bamako and since we're not allowed to ride on motorcyles and that riding one's bike in a skirt is a practical death sentence, I've taken to walking or to public transport (more on that in the next blog). While wandering around the really dirty streets of Bamako - we're talking African capitol city here - my eyes are introduced to new sites everyday. The site that prompted this blog entry was the following: seeing a young man, of 25 years old, average height and build, pushing a cart filled with 300 kilos of rice for delivery from market to a person's home. Now, for those of you not familiar with the metric system, 1 kilo=2.2 lbs. That means that we're talking about over 600 lbs of rice being pushed, with all the strength and might of a man who weighs about 150 lbs. The sweat that pours down his face is unbelievable, but there's nothing you can do. The even sadder ending to this story is that he'll make, maximum, $2 for this hard work. Another difficult site to see and watch is a man, normally about 40 or 50, riding the world's most decrepid bike, with up to 50 lbs of cucumbers, feed for the animals or sodas, stacked up on the back. I myself will confess that in my first months here I tried carrying a small child to market on my top of the line, Peace Corps issued bike, and I made it about 3 blocks until I was huffing and puffing wondering how anyone can carry weight on their bike. And now we're talking about 3 huge bags of cucumbers?!?! And what about the women and children - often between the ages of 5 and 10 - who sit at market or along the road where public transport frequently stops, to sell water or peanuts, making maybe an extra dollar a day? The idea that the family doesn't have the money or the interest to send their female children to school, but would rather earn a little extra. I mean, we hear about these things happening in the "3rd world" and in far far away, but, open your eyes people, it's happening right here! I know more people than I would like who wake up at 5 am and don't go to sleep until midnight because they're trying to make extra money for their families.

If nothing else, sit back at your desk while you're reading this, having one your really "hard" days at work, and be thankful that your life is as easy as it is.

Life in Sikoroni - Educating the People

2008-11-16T14:43:00.005Z

I recently realized that I haven't really told you all about life in Bamako. Scratch that, life in Sikoroni, my neighborhood of Bamako. We all know that Bamako is gritty, expensive and utterly unattractive, but Sikoroni is less of those things. While there is the usual "Toubabu" at every waking moment, I have met some pretty nice people along my street, even people from Sevare/Mopti, so we have an opportunity to sit around and reminice.

Sikoroni - set in this quaint area on the hillside. There's a school in the foreground and Sikoroni extends all the way up the hill.

The community itself is divided into two smaller communities: Sikoroni and Sourakabougou. It's actually in Sourakabougou that we're building the health center. Apparently, I've recently learned, there is a bit of jealousy/tension between the two neighborhoods and while a health center already exists in Sikoroni, a lot of the people from Sourakabougou refuse to go to it, putting their health at greater risk. So, the idea is to give them equal access to care so that they're use it!

Yesterday we had an event called "L'integration des Images," whereby we had an artist create these health posters and the members of our Community Health Action Group (CHAG) got together to present the posters. MHOP normally works on malaria initiatives, but we've recently begun to spread out. So, yesterday's event focused on other health problems that plague the community like hypertension, diabetes, lack of protein and vitamin A, what to do when you have a fever, and other simple health problems that can be easily treated.

Though in Bambara, and therefore can only be appreciated by my Bambara speaking friends, below you'll find a series of the health presentations. Our three star CHAG members, Soukena, Oumou and Adama, totally took charge on a day when our Director, Modibo couldn't be around. They did a great job and here is the fruit of their labors. Oh, and I think the audio is pretty awful, but try to listen anyway!

Taking the Plunge

2008-10-17T12:03:00.005Z

Well, we had our civil ceremony in Sevare last weekend. There wasn't much pomp and circumstance to it, and it was simple and sweet and low key. Some photos from the day to share with all.

Don't worry, we're still having a fete in America!

Belushi's COS Party

2008-10-17T11:59:00.004Z

Oh, that time of year that rolls around when those you entered Peace Corps with leave – and leave you behind to continue your journey through Mali. We had our Close of Service Party in Sevare on August 22nd and it was the last time that all of the Belushi’s (my group of volunteers) were together. We had a chill evening with Mexican food and dancing and of course the unveiling of the Group Banner. Every group gets a spot on the banner and it’s something that is created by the group who arrived after you, because they’re the ones that are going to know you better than other groups. So, for us, the Belushi’s, our good friends Christopher and Kate designed and embroidered an amazing rendition of the Blues Brothers. They meaning behind it was that we were all paired up at our sites – Eric and Fikru in Douentza, Christopher and Dan meeting in Sevaré, and Beth and I in Sevaré also. So, it seemed perfect that Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi be on our banner.

Mopti Kaw Belushi's!

Of course we had to pose with our “significant other” for the tribute:

Eric and Fikru - Douentza

Dan and Christopher - or Cran DiKreynco

Me and Beth - or Seth!

To the Mopti kaw Belushis – we’ve had a great 2 years together and lots of memories will remain forever. Thanks for making me a stronger and better person and I hope that we can Mopti kaw reunion in the near future!

My First Visit to Boidié – and to Meet Baba’s Family!

2008-10-17T11:39:00.004Z

So, right after my Mom and sister left, Baba and I used our position in Bamako to go to his village, Boidié and meet the family. I was pretty nervous, but it turned out to be an awesome couple of days and just really chill.

It’s obviously not the same introducing your future wife to your family here, as it is in America. I mean, we walked up to the house and Baba didn’t even tell me it was his Mom’s house and so some greets us, but I have no idea that it’s his Mom and finally he says, “Oh, this is Oumou.” Thanks, Baba. Despite my limited vocabulary in Bambara, we spoke a little bit, but her accent was different than what I’m used to so Baba was our translator for most of the weekend. I also met Bafi, his older brother, Mah, his older sister, his younger sister and Drissa his younger brother. And a whole lots of Aunts and Uncles who I will probably not remember the next time we’re there!

This is Oumou, Baba's Mom, shelling a fruit called sebe.

Me and Kadidja, Baba's father's first wife. She's really old and really sweet.

Baba's little sister and big sister, Mah, and I doing the meet and greet. Mah and I are best buds.

As you well know, I don’t get the opportunity to spend extended periods of time in small villages, so to come here I was excited. No cell phone reception, millet and toh everyday. Ahh, it was going to be great. Except literally from the moment we arrived there, everyone knew there was a white woman in village. And the “important” people to Baba’s family knew who I was and why I was coming, but not everyone did. So, I was a spectacle for awhile and finally people got used to me. But, the women had no confidence in my being able to work as a village woman. For example, every woman who entered the concession greeted me but then told me that I couldn’t draw water from the well, or pound millet or make toh, and I ensured them all that I could. I mean, if it had been 2 or 3 or 10 women who said this, I would have been fine. But over the course of 4 days, 40 women must have said this to me. So finally, one day, in the middle of a rainstorm, I think it’ll be a bright idea to go to the well and pull water. Well, I totally underestimated the amount of mud and the slipperiness of my sandals because halfway back to the house with a 20 liter bucket of water on my head, I almost wiped out. Again, it wouldn’t have been bad, but some women saw me, and just started busting out laughing. I almost started crying, but composed myself. I made it back to the house with my water and was urged by the women to just sit and relax. I wasn’t in the mood to argue so I sat quietly in the house listening to the rain.

The next day though, I did help make toh, which was fulfilling in both senses of making it and eating it. I know that most American’s have never eaten millet, but I’m addicted to this stuff. It’s only because I haven’t been forced to eat it everyday for two years, but moni (a millet porridge) and toh (polenta-ish stuff) is just delicious. And luckily, that’s all I got to eat in Boidié. People were nice enough to give us chickens as welcoming gifts, so I ate toh and chicken (no better possible combination!) and was quite content.

This is me stirring the toh, which is really thick and hard to do. Finally, people were impressed and felt I was worthy as a housewife.

We walked through the village and it was cool to see the different places that Baba grew up – the school he attended, the soccer field they played in, and meeting different family members and friends who’ve been around forever. We made our way out to the fields today and met Bafi and Drissa who were working to weed the millet. So labor intensive and there is no technology here for farmers. It’s really kind of depressing how much time they spend in the fields just to eat, not even to sell the food they’re sowing. Hopefully the agricultural sector in Mali can improve, but I don’t expect it to make any leaps anytime soon.

Baba's older brother, Bafi, in the fields.

He's a city boy now, but Baba sure knows how to farm. He's using his daba - Bambara for hoe - and weeding the millet.

Baba said he would do this as a child - go into the woods and collect branches and leaves to sell to people as goat feed.

Back in the day, when Baba was a little kid, an old, crazy, mystical man lived in this tree. He was outcast from the village. We went to see if he was still there.

I think everyone liked me, which I wouldn’t normally care about, but this was an important group to make a good impression on. I’ve seen Oumou since and she seems as smitten with me as I am with her (though she was telling strangers of my fateful day with the bucket of water and mud!). I think it’ll be a good family to being a member of.

Ba, me and Hamsa, two of the cutest kids in village!

Mom and Beth in Mali!

2008-10-17T11:26:00.006Z

August 3rd brought Mom and Beth to Mali, which was a pretty awesome thing. Even though their 2:35 AM flight didn’t arrive until 5:45 AM and there was no air circulation on their plane, and they don’t speak French so had no clue what was going on in Morocco, it was alright. Oh, I forgot to mention how I put them on a 9 hour bus ride, not even an hour after their arrival, to come to Sevaré. So yeah, they loved me the first day! But, they arrived in Sevaré, all safe and sound, if not exhausted, and slept clear till the next morning.

Funniest part about their arrival – I didn’t expect Baba to be at the bus station waiting because it wasn’t part of the plan we talked about. So, we get off the bus and I see him but am speechless, my sister sees him and recognizes him from photos and says hi and then my Mom sees him and is also surprised so she screams out, “FINMAN!” which means “Black” in Bambara. No one paid attention but she was later like, “Sara, I screamed out “Blackie” at the bus station. People must think I’m awful.” It was a great introduction to Sevaré.

Because they were only in town for 9 days, we had to make the best of it. Though I wanted to take them to Timbuktu, on a river trip and throughout the whole country, we decided to focus on Dogon Country. I didn’t realize also how exhausting the heat would be for them, so it was a good thing that we took it slow. So, we eventually headed out to Dogon Country with Hassimi the Fearless, my favorite Dogon Guide. He was awesome and my mom and sister loved him. We did the southern Dogon route, Ende, Teli, and Begimato because time was short. We also visited Songho, the village that is most known for its circumcision rituals for both boys and girls. It was my first time there and pretty interesting to see the process and the meanings for them of these ceremonies.

After two days in Dogon, we were pressé (in a hurry) to get back to Sevaré. The food had been pretty awful and we were pretty starving. So, we decided to treat ourselves and go out to this restaurant that has really good kebabs. So, we arrive there and we’re exhausted but we just want some food and then we can go crash. There was nothing available on the menu except for the kebabs. No sautéed potatoes, no French friends, no green beans, NOTHING. The part that pissed me off the most was that there is a potato market stand right next to the restaurant and the server told me, “No, we didn’t go to market today.” Um, how about exiting your restaurant and cooking me up something good? So, we ate meat, and then went home and cooked because we were still very hungry. Oh, Mali.

After Dogon we headed back down to Bamako and visited my host family in Banankoro before spending an entire afternoon at the artisan market where they bought lots of stuff, including a gorgeous leather and bronze Tuareg chest/trunk. I’m secretly hoping my Mom won’t want it in a few years and that it’ll adorn my house.

It was really great to see them, and I got homesick, but it was good timing. Luckily, I get to go home in less than 2 months, and I’m counting down the days to Mexican food and Cookies and Cream ice cream!

Mom, me and Beth on the way to Bengimato.

Me, in Songho, the quinesential Dogon Country Photo.

These instruments are used by the boys and girls during their right of passage circumcision ceremony.

Beautiful shot of the village.

Hassimi the Fearless talking to us about the circumcision ceremony and the rock paintings that are done during the 3 months the children are there.

Mom and Beth in Songho.

Mom, pounding millet with the Dogon women.

Beth and Mom on the Niger River in Mopti.

Just Married

2008-08-19T15:51:00.002Z

This is my honey, Baba Fima!

So, remember that movie Lost in Translation? I really hated it when I first saw it, but I’m feeling more and more like I’ll need to watch it again. This past weekend Baba and I went to his village, Boidié, so that I could meet his family, and we left married! I was really looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing where he grew up and was all mischievous as a child. So, after my mom and sister left we headed out there. The other back part of this story is that we had decided back in April/early May that we wanted to get married. So, social ceremonies are huge here in Mali and normally when two Malians want to get married the male’s family brings kola nuts to the female’s family to ask for her hand in marriage. Well, I don’t have a real family here so we improvised a little and just bypassed that step. He and I had thoroughly discussed this whole going to village and going the Kola Ceremony and I felt confident that it meant we were officially engaged – kind of like being proposed to. The closer it grew for us to go to village, it kept sounding more and more like we were getting married. Either way, we already decided we wanted to get married so it’s a non issue really. Plus, living in Africa, things/plans/definitions change about every 30 seconds so I’m constantly ready for change. So, this is how it went down: We arrived on Friday afternoon and spent the day greeting family members and I was introduced to everyone in the village and was aptly named buramuso by everyone. Buramuso is Bambara and is what women who are married to a family member are called. Well, here, everyone is your brother, sister, uncle, aunt and cousin so I’m buramuso to literally the entire village. It’s a name that will stick for life and if I’m called buramuso I can call the person who called me it my buramuso or burace in the case of males. Anyway, needless to say, buramuso is not a word I’ll soon be forgetting! After being asked if I know how to do housework and prepare meals by every woman I met throughout the course of the weekend, I finally got a chance to sit down and talk to Baba’s mom which was awesome. She’s this great lady who is aging but couldn’t stop to rest for a second if you paid her. She goes to markets all around her village to sell fabric and vegetables to other woman. She’s doing well for herself which is really great. So, like most social ceremonies in Mali, the Kola was underwhelming. Baba told me that on Sunday night the men would go to the mosque and pray and give benedictions/blessings and then they would return to the family’s house area and distribute the kola nuts and pay me my dowry and then we’d be married. 100 kola nuts were purchased and distributed and I received 3.750 CFA which is about $8.50. In the past, 3,750 CFA was a lot of money and it gave the woman an opportunity to buy something to start her life with her husband, whether that meant new clothes or a goat or sheep, it didn’t matter, but this money is meant to be used by the woman only and not spent on anyone else. Then benedictions were passed around and “Amen’s” were said and it was over. I’m not joking when I tell you that Baba was at the mosque for maybe 7 minutes, and that the whole thing was done in maybe 20! Underwhelming? Yeah, so I sat at home the whole time staring at the wall wondering how I was going to tell the people in my life that I was married and I hadn’t even found a solution by the time he returned. It was crazy!

So, a little on the wedding process here. Traditionally there are 3 weddings: religious, Mayor’s Office, and traditional fete. It’s not that different than in America, but in America, we do all three of these on the same day at the same time. Here, each group/family is different, but we did the religious ceremony and the Mayor’s Office and traditional will come later. Weddings here aren’t decided by the people getting married. If Baba’s father were alive he would have decided and made all of the arrangements, but instead his oldest brother, Bafi, organized everything. Before there were Mayor’s Offices in Mali, the religious ceremony was the ceremony to be married. So, Baba’s family is still very traditional and so they all consider us to be very married now and we can start our life together. In a couple of weeks, Bafi will call Baba and ask him when we want to have the traditional wedding/fete and together we will decide that. For us, it’ll probably happen next February or March, whenever we’ve saved up enough money, but before we come to America. That just leaves the Mayor’s Office and the only reason that this is so important for us is for visa purposes for Baba to come to America. On this day, which will likely happen here in Sevaré, I will actually have a dress – hand made by my tailor – and we will have a small party after with friends and family here in Sevaré/Mopti, but it’ll be nothing like this big fete in his village next year. Now, I say all of this like I know, but in all reality I have no idea! I also have to prepare myself for these two weddings to be underwhelming or else I’ll get my hopes up and will be let down on the day of. So, let’s just say I will update very frequently about the status of these social ceremonies.

So, the last question is what does this mean for me? Well, I’m 24 and married which is daunting but really exciting. My new name is Sara Berthé (like bear-tey), but that won’t be official for awhile. And I’m ridiculously happy. I know that in America we date and then get engaged and then get married and the whole process can take from 2 to 5 years to longer, all depending, and I also know that a lot of people are going to say, “From meeting to married in a year? What is she thinking?” but when you know you’ve met the person who will care for you and about you for the rest of your life and you’ll do the same, you can’t let that pass you by. In my “ideal sketch” of life, I probably wouldn’t have started looking for a husband until 27ish, but anyone who thinks they can plan their lives to a T is ridiculous and you have to be ready for surprises.

But, I’m definitively going to have an awesome wedding/ceremony in America because it’s not the same getting married in a different country with different customs. I love it here and I understand and respect it, but I want celebrate with my friends and family in America and get married the way I know. So cliché, I know, but whatever, I’m allowed to be cliché sometimes!

Identity Crisis – Or Not?

2008-07-18T09:57:00.000Z

So people say that moving to a new place is a new chance for a change of identity. You can recreate yourself and change any things you didn’t like about yourself in the past or you can add new elements to your life that would be too far of a leap in your past life. Where am I going with this? I knew that this identity change could happen, but I didn’t necessarily think that living in Mali would change me that much. When you’re joining the Peace Corps you read a lot of literature about how you’re going to go find yourself. Well, what does that even mean? Honestly, two years ago, “finding myself” wasn’t on my list of to do’s in Mali, however, it’s definitely been checked off and done!

It started with something as simple as going to the tailor here and having some Malian clothes made. Or wearing ridiculously big, beaded necklaces, which I’ve recently been called a patron for wearing. The outside appearance was the easy stuff – a change of clothes or wearing new jewelry. Things got complicated when my personality traits started changing and I wasn’t necessarily prepared for it.

So, how do you find yourself? Well, take yourself out of the culture and country that you’re most comfortable in and compromise everything about your life and things start to change. You realize that a lot of your personality traits and idiosyncrasies are a product of your environment. What examples can I give? In America I was pretty uptight about things. There were deadlines, there was money to be made/that needed to be made, there was shit to do. My last year in America I was at school full time, working 30 hours a week (minimum), organizing a conference, having ankle surgery and doing physical therapy and applying for the Peace Corps (which is pretty intense). There wasn’t time to take a step back and look at my life and see what was going right or wrong. I wore black pants and pointy-toed shoes and wore subtle jewelry because everyone else in DC was doing it and why be the fish swimming upsteam in a city where no one else is? I wanted to fit it and I did and it was nice.

So, here I am in Mali, wanting to fit in again. The problem is that fitting in here and in America is totally different. And now that I’ve fit in here, and I’m not uptight about everything and “American” about everything, it’s awesome. I feel great! But, how to I re-assimilate into America? How do I stay Malian in America? I don’t know. It’s going to be really hard. I know who I want to be, even if I wasn’t that person before, but I’m worried about the constraints of American society on who that person is. I also worry that my friends and family will expect me to be a certain person – i.e. the person I used to be – and I want to change. Is that going to be weird for people? Are they not going to know how to react with me or what?

Anyway, I think I’m having an identity crisis – yikes! – and think that this crisis will continue when I arrive in America next year. I just want to ask everyone to be accepting of this change. There will be a lot that has changed and you can accept me and the changes or not. We’ll see how this plays out!

Anything Goes BUT Clothes

2008-06-22T09:30:00.003Z

The title really says it all, but it was a birthday party for a couple of PCVs. So we had a fete and it went well. Here's the Belushi photo of our last party altogether in San.

Costumes were pretty impressive, I myself sporting some brooms and loofah.

Ah, the Belushi's. What will I do without them?

A Return to Normalcy

2008-06-22T09:12:00.000Z

Not just a campaign slogan for Warren Harding but also my general state of being for the past 2 months or so. It all started when I went on vacation to Togo and Benin. I mean, things were strange, don’t get me wrong – I was in a ridiculously developed country, comparatively speaking. Things were very strange. But at the same time, things were so normal. Sitting on a bus for 3 days to arrive at a destination, whether we had seats or not, was normal. Sitting on this transport with goats, sheep and chicken both in and outside of the car, is normal. Eating meat, chicken and hot dogs from a street vendor (read, a guy with an empty oil barrel and fire heating a grill on top and sitting on the side of the road) is normal. Walking down the street and getting cat called at and asked to be married is normal. Showering 4 times a day, just to cool off….again, pretty normal. Seeing family’s of 3, 4 or 5 people on a moto, on their way to school is normal. Being so modest that I feel scantily clad if my knees show for a second, is normal. Eating with my hand, and completing boycotting utensils – that’s scarily normal. Drinking water from unknown sources, that’s just survival. But what I want to know is when these things changed from being weird and foreign to being an everyday part of my life. Granted, I’ve been here for two years now, but I still feel like these things should make my head turn and not seem to everyday. I think it’s a survival mechanism. You deal with things as they come at you because if you don’t, you’re going to go crazy. It’s funny how things seem so normal here.

As Usual, Long Time...

2008-05-19T09:59:00.002Z

Yes, it's been awhile but I just got back from vacation. I may post photos of Benin and Togo later, but no promises.

I want to say that I'm going to start a "series" of blog postings on different subjects here. They'll vary from my feelings about certain things to the differences between Malians and other West Africans to Consumerism, comparatively in Mali/West Africa and America.

That's just a preview.

Things are a little hectic now and will be that way for a couple of weeks. So, these postings will come, but not immediately.

Fashion Show, Douentza, Ansongo and Gao...Yeah, we've been busy here!

2008-03-10T15:06:00.014Z

Okay, so it’s been forever and a day since I’ve written anything, but I have been active, if not completely busy out of my mind. I had a couple of down days because I’m kind of bored right now. I don’t really have much work to do and I’m just waiting on money for the cow insemination project (shameless plug, really: ) and I was down. Then I took to the road! For about a month it was Festival Central here with festivals in some major towns which brought some great musical acts and artisanal products from all around. It all started in Segou with the Festival sur le Niger which brought Habib Koite and Salif Keita and then continued in Mopti with Amadou and Mariam and then went to Douentza for a cultural festival and even continued all the way to Ansongo for a Songhay festival. The past week I went to my old stomping grounds, Douentza, for the Dogon cultural festival and then continued to Ansongo (though I didn’t make it in time for the festival), which is pretty close to the border of Niger and then back to Gao. The trip was twofold. One, I needed to get away from site and two, I have friends whose site’s I wanted to visit and see them in their elements, living their everyday lives.

So, here’s the recap, in photos, of course:

First of all, there was a fashion show with people from Farafina Tigne. Of course we did it Peace Corps Baba/Farafina Tigne style and went all out! My teammate Beth and I were the two token white people in the procession and we were decked out.

Group shot of many of us.

So, it was kind of like carnival as we promenaded down the streets of Mopti.

PC Baba, of course, wearing bogolan and riding a white stallion? Where he even found the horse is beyond me!

Me and Bozo (That’s his name because that’s his ethnic group, though he is pretty silly!)

Me and Vielle, the single handed best djembe player in all of Mali – that I’ve met anyway.

Then on to Douentza. Douentza’s festival was a cultural festival so not many tourists were there, which was awesome. I haven’t talked about how much I dislike tourists, but I’ll make that an entry soon enough. Anyway, there were Dogons from Bankass, Koro, Bandiagarra, Mopti and Douentza and each town was represented by dancers. Here are some highlights.

Here’s a huge toguna that was constructed especially for the event. A toguna is a meeting place in Dogon culture where only older men are allowed to go. It’s built close to the ground so that a man can’t stand up quickly, if angry, to leave the meeting. It’s also adorned with Malian flags. Verte, Jaune, Rouge, go Mali!

Dogon’s are infamous for wearing this indigo cloth which they themselves dye in Dogon Country. They were all decked out in it, looking fabulous.

Some Dogon men dancing with their swords.

This is the essential “Dogon” wearing costumes for dancing. They are what tourists come to see.

Also, here are some videos of different groups of Dogon's dancing:

After being lied about transport times, I finally made my way to Ansongo (which is like 600 kilometers from Douentza) and I was exhausted. I got on the bus at 3:30 AM only to find the window was broken (remember, it’s the desert-ish area so it’s still chilly at night), plus an old Peulh guy that couldn’t sleep and was screaming so that no one else could either. Thanks to an iPod and a sheet I had the foresight to bring with me, I slept until Gao. I arrived in Gao, waited for 5 hours and then we left for Ansongo. The scenery was pretty, it’s more of the desert there, and I made it in two hours, to see the Ansongo festival finishing up. I was there to visit my friend Joanna and we spent two days seeing the town and I went with her to her baby weighings at the clinic. We also took an afternoon boat ride to these gorgeous rocks that are in the middle of the Niger River.

Here are the rocks at sunset.

We climbed the rocks and I’m standing with the Niger in the background.

Joanna and Dave, Ansongo teammates, with Ansongo town in the background.

So, after two days, I headed back to Gao ville to experience all that is Gao. It’s really pretty there, this kind of sand blown city in the desert. The population isn’t that large, but it’s really spread out. So, I went to visit my togoma, Sarah, and we had a great time. She’s a tourism volunteer so I visited the Gao Tourism Bureau, and of course part took in some tourist activities. I visited the Tomb of the Askias which is the tomb of the famous Askia Mohammed. It was constructed in 1495 and is remudded every two years to preserve it. Inside, there is the body of Askia Mohammed and also other valuables that came from his travels around, like gold originating from Egypt. All of his descendants are buried on the ground of this tomb, which is pretty cool. It’s still used as a mosque everyday for men and on Friday’s for non-menstruating women. I also visited the infamous Dune Rose which is this gorgeous sand dune a couple of kilometers from Gao ville.

The view from Sarah’s roof of the pirogues on the Niger river at sunset.

Sarah and Sara.

Tomb of the Askias.

Me, standing at the Tomb. Okay, so Malians can’t really hold camera’s straight.

Traveling nomad on his trek across the Dune. There is a series that go all the way to Timbuktu. I wonder where he’s going.

Gorgeous black sand on the Dune.

Me at the Dune Rose.

Sarah and Sara and our friend, Chaka.

Milk is so Important

2008-02-07T09:15:00.000Z

Good Morning from Mali –

How are you all doing? Most of you know I’m not big on the mass emails, except for certain occasions. As you can gather, this is one of those occasions. Things here in Mali have been going really well and I’m doing well. Cold season is unfortunately close to over because I’ve been warm the past two days. This is not a good sign. But, we’ll make it through!

Anyway, I wanted to tell everyone about a project I’m working on. Despite working with PC Baba and Hallmark for the bogolan bag project, my ‘real’ job here is with a dairy co-op. We have a project going right now to do some cow inseminations. Trust me, I never thought the words ‘Sara Rosen’ and ‘cow insemination’ would be in the same sentence either, but they are. I’ve filled out a project proposal we call a Peace Corps Partnership Proposal and what happens is that this project is posted online and then friends, family and interested groups can donate. The good thing about this type of proposal is that the community is required to donate to the project, so it’s not just a hand out. My dairy co-op has donated 25% of the total cost with the hope of the American public funding the other 75%.

This is where you can come in! I would really appreciate if you could give even a little bit. The total that we’re looking for is $5,860, but I don’t expect that to be raised in an instant. I’m willing for it to take some time, but I hope it gets filled before the end of my service here! I would love to see this project through to its end. You can see this information on the website, but here is the summary of the project:

Due to the breed of cows in Mali, their output of milk production is low. With the insemination of these cows with sperm from French or Netherlands cows, and therefore hybrid offspring, milk production will at least double. The increased production will allow greater income generation to befall on Laiterie Suudu Baaba (dairy co-op), but will more importantly ensure the supply of dairy products to the community that demands them. Suudu Baaba has been very forward thinking with its project ideas thus far and knows how to expand their business and satisfy the community. Money for the large scale insemination is the only thing holding them back. The dairy co-op is asking for 76 cows to be inseminated and has the capacity to pay for 20 of those. It asks that you help supply funding for the remaining 56.

With the help of funding from the American public, Suudu Baaba can continue its business and continue to provide dairy products at low prices for all to afford them, not only those financially stable. It is their desire and hope to be a successful co-op in the region and sustain themselves for years to come. Without an increase in raw milk to transform into the products it offers, it will not be able to stay in business to see the next several years.

So, there you have it. Here is the website address that you can visit to donate.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/regioncontrib.cfm?region=africa

If you scroll down to Mali you’ll find my name and the heading Increased Milk Production. If you can give, I’m pretty sure the donations are tax deductible. In addition, please let me know who you are and you’ll definitely be thanked by me and my Malian counterparts.

If you have any other questions regarding the project, I will be more than happy to answer them. Don’t hesitate to ask. Also, if you can forward this on to other people or groups who might be able to help or who might be interested in giving, that would be greatly helpful.

Thanks so much, in advance, and we’ll talk soon!

Too Many Innocents Abroad?

2008-01-28T09:24:00.000Z

Recently published in the New York Times Op-Ed was a commentary by the former PC Country Director of Cameroon. I’ve included the text here:

Too Many Innocents Abroad
By ROBERT L. STRAUSS
Published: January 9, 2008
Antananarivo, Madagascar

THE Peace Corps recently began a laudable initiative to increase the number of volunteers who are 50 and older. As the Peace Corps’ country director in Cameroon from 2002 until last February, I observed how many older volunteers brought something to their service that most young volunteers could not: extensive professional and life experience and the ability to mentor younger volunteers.
However, even if the Peace Corps reaches its goal of having 15 percent of its volunteers over 50, the overwhelming majority will remain recently minted college graduates. And too often these young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century.

This wasn’t the case in 1961 when the Peace Corps sent its first volunteers overseas. Back then, enthusiastic young Americans offered something that many newly independent nations counted in double and even single digits: college graduates. But today, those same nations have millions of well-educated citizens of their own desperately in need of work. So it’s much less clear what inexperienced Americans have to offer.
The Peace Corps has long shipped out well-meaning young people possessing little more than good intentions and a college diploma. What the agency should begin doing is recruiting only the best of recent graduates — as the top professional schools do — and only those older people whose skills and personal characteristics are a solid fit for the needs of the host country.

The Peace Corps has resisted doing this for fear that it would cause the number of volunteers to plummet. The name of the game has been getting volunteers into the field, qualified or not.

In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school. I wrote to our headquarters in Washington to ask if anyone had considered how an American farmer would feel if a fresh-out-of-college Cameroonian with a liberal arts degree who had occasionally visited Grandma’s cassava plot were sent to Iowa to consult on pig-raising techniques learned in a three-month crash course. I’m pretty sure the American farmer would see it as a publicity stunt and a bunch of hooey, but I never heard back from headquarters.

For the Peace Corps, the number of volunteers has always trumped the quality of their work, perhaps because the agency fears that an objective assessment of its impact would reveal that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries. The agency has no comprehensive system for self-evaluation, but rather relies heavily on personal anecdote to demonstrate its worth.

Every few years, the agency polls its volunteers, but in my experience it does not systematically ask the people it is supposedly helping what they think the volunteers have achieved. This is a clear indication of how the Peace Corps neglects its customers; as long as the volunteers are enjoying themselves, it doesn’t matter whether they improve the quality of life in the host countries. Any well-run organization must know what its customers want and then deliver the goods, but this is something the Peace Corps has never learned.

This lack of organizational introspection allows the agency to continue sending, for example, unqualified volunteers to teach English when nearly every developing country could easily find high-caliber English teachers among its own population. Even after Cameroonian teachers and education officials ranked English instruction as their lowest priority (after help with computer literacy, math and science, for example), headquarters in Washington continued to send trainees with little or no classroom experience to teach English in Cameroonian schools. One volunteer told me that the only possible reason he could think of for having been selected was that he was a native English speaker.

The Peace Corps was born during the glory days of the early Kennedy administration. Since then, its leaders and many of the more than 190,000 volunteers who have served have mythologized the agency into something that can never be questioned or improved. The result is an organization that finds itself less and less able to provide what the people of developing countries need — at a time when the United States has never had a greater need for their good will.

Robert L. Strauss has been a Peace Corps volunteer, recruiter and country director. He now heads a management consulting company.

There has recently been some debate on the merits of his comments regarding PC volunteers. A discussion arose amongst PCVs and their friends and families and I thought I’d jump on the band wagon and add my two cents. Why not, right?

Something that Strauss comments on is about the lack of maturity and experience of recent college graduates. These comments can never be widespread and applied to the general public, but currently in Mali, I would say that he’d hit the nail on the head. With my group of volunteers who entered, the mean age was about 25 or 27, I can’t remember. That means that there were some recent college graduates, but that also means that there were a significant number of older volunteers who had other volunteer or real world experience. I feel like my group had a really good head on its shoulders and that we each brought something to the table. Now, with our new group of volunteers, I don’t know if I feel the same way. Granted, it’s a group of 70 volunteers, and I don’t know them all, but the majority that I have met are right out of college and not to say that they don’t have the skills to apply, but they’re some of the most immature and/or inconsiderate people I’ve met. Honestly, sometimes I wonder what’s going on in the interview process in America. I’m hoping that they’re just new and in a new environment and will grow out of it. Hell, maybe we were like this too, but I don’t think so. There’s still time to see if things will turn around with them, but I do wonder which characteristics are being sought after in regional PC offices in America.

Now, here’s what I don’t agree with Strauss about. This sentence in particular really bothers me: “..that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries.” After being a Country Director for some time, I wonder what he was doing with him time, other than being a patron in a West African country. It’s the CD’s job to help volunteers promote development within a country. Peace Corps isn’t one of these aid agencies where all of the volunteers are leading lush lives and only hanging out with other Americans. For the most part, volunteers live in the country/en brousse, in a mud house with no electricity and/or running water. There are volunteers who are just here for the cross cultural experience, but there are others who truly want to make some sort of lasting impact, whether it be a cereal bank or millet grinder in their village or building a well and having a training on well maintenance or even helping artisans work on their design ideas for their products. We’re all here for a reason, but I can’t say I understand Mr. Strauss’ reason for sticking around Cameroon if he wasn’t 100% devoted to helping his volunteers. I can definitely say that our Country Director is invested in the work that we do and it’s important. If your boss didn’t care whether or not you were living in West Africa, would you stay?

I will agree that Peace Corps should review and evaluate what it’s doing and what tools of monitoring and evaluation it’s using. It’s the same thing with the United Nations Security Council reform, or less sexy, it’s the same thing as businesses reevaluating their prices for goods – something that Malians don’t often do. We all need to reevaluate our lives and work and what’s going on. Every single person, business, agency and organization must do this to improve. For example, we here are required to write quarterly reports and send them to our APCD in Bamako. Each time I send it, my APCD says, “Great work, I’ll get back to you with comments.” I’ve sent four quarterly reports now and I’ve never received feedback. So, in my mind, I’m doing a great job and I’m one of the volunteers actually invested in being here. If the APCDs were actually reading these reports, they would see that some volunteers sit at their site and don’t do a thing. These are the volunteers I don’t quite understand and I don’t get why they’re here, but it’s their life. These are the same people that complain about the heat and the food and using an outhouse and say that they’re suffering. Um, this is voluntary. Go home if you’re not happy.

One thing that some other volunteers and I have talked about are the benefits of being in the Peace Corps. Most of us are doing this for ourselves or to promote our future careers. I don’t know anyone who says, “Alright, I want to rough it for two years, where can I go?” but I’m sure they’re out there. Currently our benefits include a small resettlement allowance when we return home and an opportunity to join in the non-competitive job pool for government jobs. There are some educational opportunities, but the better ones are available if you start your Master’s before Peace Corps. So, what would be better? My friend and teammate suggested making it a little more like the military. Make it a 4 year commitment and give those who make all 4 years educational benefits, just the military does. I can imagine the applicant pool becoming intensely competitive or kind of thin. Not that many people want to commit 2, let alone 4, years of their lives to development work. But on the other hand, there are those who would love it. Why is the American government saying the Peace Corps is an important agency but not doing anything to get the great development workers interested instead of making it a fun club to be a member of? If we’re trying to improve our image abroad, let’s do it right. An increase in the contract of a PCV would also let them complete more in the time span. Currently, two years isn’t really enough to get anything done. Your first year is spent as a 3 year old trying to struggle through the language barrier, and by the time your second year has rolled around, 9 to 12 months is tough to accomplish everything you want. It’s something PC HQ should think about.

Development doesn’t just happen overnight. Anyone who thinks that needs to take another look at the developing world or take their head out of their ass. I’m not going to lie, there was a point that I thought I could “save the world.” Don’t we all? Growing up in rural, upstate NY and then moving to DC for university, I thought, “Damn, this is just the beginning, now I can do anything I want to and fix anything I put my mind to.” Well, I was right about doing anything I want, but wrong about fixing anything I want. Potable water doesn’t just appear for 1 billion people overnight. Neither does the eradication of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. You can’t introduce literacy and numeracy to a population of 12 million overnight. Hell, it’s tough for most of us to get Malians to wash their hands with soap before they eat. And that’s a 2 year, uphill battle that we win, but what happens when we leave? Why would they continue to spend the precious few CFA they have on soap when water seemingly has the same effect?

It’s a two way street, development. We’re busting our asses to help the people we live with and around to better themselves and their families. But, if they don’t want the help, you can’t force them. Some agencies try that or promise that if they change the agency will give them money. So, what happens? Villages change for 3 months to get a large sum of money and then immediately return to the ways that they’re used to. Behavioral change is a headache. But, in the end, if you can get even a small population of people to change and start believing in something better, it’ll have been worth it. Maybe I’m still young and naïve, but I truly believe that leaving a lasting impression on even one person will have made my two years in Mali worth it. Luckily, I know there is more than one person who will remember me and my hard work.

Globalization, Outsourcing and Mali

2008-01-28T09:23:00.000Z

I know, those three words don’t necessarily fit in the same sentence, or do they? You probably don’t know enough about Mali to understand that under normal circumstances, these three ideas are just crazy together. However, I’ve recently come to realize that it’s not that crazy of a notion.

I’ve just read The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman which is a ‘brief history of the 21st century.’ It was written in 2005, so I’m a little behind the times, but it’s an amazing book. It talks about how with the spread of globalization that countries are becoming more open and more likely to trade with one another or outsource or offshore and that with the borders being opened, the world it becoming more flat. Now, not only does Friedman have a great writing style that kept me hooked through all 470 pages, he also brings up good points about why India and China are on the rise but African countries are not. India and China have stable economies and they have something to offer – intelligence, services and cheap labor. The same isn’t true all throughout Africa, especially not Mali. I learned the other day from the American Ambassador here that Mali has the 3rd highest energy costs in all of Africa. That’s 3rd out of 54 countries. And after talking to Malians, I learned that energy costs are only going to go up. It’s crazy. How can Mali even think about supporting manufacturing or international exporting and therefore development if the cost of a running some sort of manufacturing plant will be ridiculously expensive? They can’t and that’s not fair. Now, I’m not saying that Mali is by any means to start a project like this, but it’s just an example.

But, I do want to talk about the ‘outsourcing’ that does occur here. Now, I don’t know the official Webster’s definition of outsourcing, and for that matter I don’t even know if it necessarily has to be an international thing, but for the sake of me talking right now, I’m going to use my own definition, and by that I mean through example. Let’s take Farafina Tigne, Peace Corps Baba’s shop, for example. When I first got there and saw all of the amazing jewelry inside, I was like, “Wow, Baba makes all of this?” Over the next several months, we were too busy with Hallmark for me to get a good grasp of the business transactions taking place. But recently I’ve noticed that outsourcing does take place. Recently Baba Fima created a new necklace made with black and clear glass beads and an ebony pendant in the middle. It’s really pretty, but it took him the better part of the day to string one necklace – it did have 6 or 8 strands of beads. So, instead he told me that he’d drop off all of the materials for someone in market in Mopti who would string all of them. Then I got curious and asked the price. I was astonished to find out that he would pay 250 CFA – less than $.50 – to make this necklace. Granted, he’s already paid for all of the materials, but $.50 to make a necklace? What’s better is that his friend could make 50 in one day, giving him a net profit of 12,500 CFA – about $30. For someone to earn $30 here in one day is amazing. It’s not common and when it does happen, they’ve normally worked hard for it. So, this is my idea of Malian outsourcing. Baba Fima knows that it’ll take him 5 times as long to make all of these necklaces and therefore outsources them to someone who can do it better. In the end, he’ll still sell these necklaces for 5.000 or 6.000 CFA and make a good profit, but he’s being a smart businessman. While his 50 necklaces are being strung, he can focus on other work and double his profit. Well, then I started to think about everything in Baba’s shop. We do the finishing touches on a lot of things like adding the ear wires to earrings, or artistically stringing necklaces. But, there’s a lot that we outsource to our partners also – like Peulh earrings, Tuareg metal work, and bogolan. This is a stretch, but we’re a mini Dell of Mali, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Who says Mali isn’t ready for globalization and outsourcing?

In i fama wa?

2008-01-28T09:21:00.001Z

Yeah, so hi, it’s been awhile. I’ve been the opposite of busy and enthusiastic about life so that’s why there haven’t been any updates or news. What’s going on here? A whole lot of nothing, which sucks. I went down to Bamako for the new stage’s In-Service Training, which could have been really beneficial for them if it had been in the least bit organized. You know, it’s like each time there’s a training a group of volunteers tries to tell the bureau that last year’s training was malorganizé, and yet no one listens. And by that I mean the people who need to listen don’t. It’s annoying and discouraging. So, I’m done trying to reorganize Bamako and help out.

What else? I’m beginning to feel like a “normal” volunteer and I don’t like it. “Normal” can’t be bad, right? But in this context it is. With Hallmark I was running at 100 MPH and I was always busy and always stressed and didn’t have two minutes for myself. Oddly enough, that’s what I’m used to. Remember GW, anyone? So, now that the Hallmark project is over, I’m bored out of my mind. Yes, there are other things I can be doing with my time and I am, but it’s not the same. I’ve been working with the dairy co-op and we wrote up a project proposal to request money to do some cow insemination – yeah, I never thought “Sara Rosen” and “cow insemination” would come up in the same conversation either – but now that the proposal is submitted, we just have to wait. There’s nothing to do until we get the money. So, where does that leave me?

It means that now I should have time for all of those “activist” things that I really want to do that will really make me a better person and make me feel like my time here is worthwhile. Well, guess what? The boat’s already left on a lot of those. The problem, which will sound crazy, is that I only officially have eight months left until my two years are over. Eight months here is not a lot of time, considering the vacation I will take along with the fact that hot season – ie, no work season – is rapidly approaching. I wanted to be so forward thinking and have an environmental education camp for some high school students to educate them regarding the environmental degradation of Mali and alternative energy and cooking sources. Well, not to sound too defeatist, but even if I do that, I can’t imagine it making a difference. There were some organizations I wanted to start getting to know to pursue 3rd year options with, but I just don’t have the umph to go out there and do it. Isn’t that sad? The real thing behind my lack of enthusiasm to ‘get out there and go get ‘em’ is that Malians are driving me crazy right now. I’m having a real issue with Malian male perceived superiority and sexism. I mean, that only gets tiring after about 30 seconds.

So, in order to avoid all of this, what have I been doing? I go to PC Baba’s to hang out and see people everyday, but my time spent there has gotten shorter and shorter. I go and chat and eat lunch and watch CNN – if I’m lucky – and then I come back home to read, nap and just get away from Malians. I know it sounds really bad but there comes a time when everyone needs to just have personal time. My problem is that I’m not balancing personal time with Malian time, which needs to change.

So, what are my plans? Well, this weekend I’m heading down to Segou for the Festival sur le Niger which is a Malian music festival. There are some good people going, and Salif Keita is the headline – maybe we’ll hug and dance on stage again! – so that should be good. There are cultural things too and artisans which means I’ll of course come home with some beautiful artisanal goodies. After that there is another Dogon Festival in Douentza so I might head up there and visit my old host family and see how things are going. I’ve also promised my friends up in Gao that I’ll come up and visit. It’s just that the perspective of sitting on a bus to go to a really hot desert city isn’t too appealing. But, I’m going to have to do it sometime, so why not when cold season is still around. So, February has a little travel going on in it. Work wise, who knows. My main plans of cotton amelioration and working on that might not come to fruition which will piss me off. But I live in the north, not in the south, and there’s almost no cotton production up here. So, I need to get serious about this and see what I can realistically do. Also, there’s a woman who lives in Mopti who makes pottery and I’m interested in learning a little about that, and helping her with her business if I can, so I’m going to start that. In addition, my tailor is the one of the best in Mali but one of the least organized and he’s requested my help for better organization which I will definitely help him with. I’m hoping something cool comes my way or that I get magically inspired to do something awesome.

I’m afraid of being bored for the next eight months. Help!

It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

2007-12-11T11:20:00.000Z

In Mali, I realize that that’s hard to believe. But, you haven’t seen my house yet! After my trip en brusse, we swung through San and stopped by the stage house there to use the facilities. They had loads of decorations and had stockings mounted for each San volunteer. I was jealous. Our Sevare bureau doesn’t have crap. So, I decided that that night I would start to decorate my house.

Granted, I have no Christmas tree or Christmas lights, or even construction paper which would have taken me a long way. But what I did have was white paper, a ton of Crayola markers and ambition to be in the Christmas spirit. I put on the only Christmas music I had at the time – I’ve since downloaded lots more – a CD I bought Freshman year at Starbucks called Golly Get Jolly and I started out to work. Though I’m not done, I thought I’d share the fruits of my labor, thus far. Any interior decorating ideas, using computer paper and markers, would be appreciated!

Peanuts Advent Calendar that my sister sent. No chocolate, but it's an ADVENT CALENDAR. Awesomeness, anyone?

I took me the whole night to decorate and cut out each letter, but Merry Christmas was in order.

This guy was a late inspiration, but look how delicious he turned out. If only we could make gingerbread cookies here.

And, despite not having a real tree and presents, at least these turned out well.

Merry Christmas, Mali.

Sara Goes Brussey-la

2007-12-11T10:40:00.000Z

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I knew that the proverbial grass would be greener on the other side and I would have to go check it out. Not to mention that I love not having electricity and running water. I know that might be taken as sarcastic, but it really isn’t. The idea of going to the well or pump everyday to get water and then heating it up for a bucket bath under the stars is so appealing. Using flashlights, lanterns and candles is also really soothing. But, my friends, I digress.

Seeing that MaryVirginia is by far my best friend in country, and seeing that she had already trekked up here to Sevare to visit me, it was long past due that I went to her site. I was in luck, because it happened to be en brusse, as they say here (middle of nowhere, for you non-French speakers). After arriving in her market town, it was about a 10 km ride to Debela. I didn’t think I would make it. I’m just not used to biking 10 km anywhere. But, we arrived. It’s a quaint little village and I loved it. It was dark/late when we got there so we showered and chilled and greeted every single member of her family who gave me each a million blessings. It was nice to have a family to come home to. Needless to say, the week en brusse was spent meeting her friends and counterparts and getting to see what her every day life if. She always says there’s nothing to do en brusse – which is true – but for me, coming from the busy city, it was a welcomed change/relief. Here are some highlights from the week:

Field Work:

I haven’t had the opportunity to go out into the fields and bring the year’s harvest in. Well, in Debela I sure did! The women were working on either millet or sorghum and though it had already been taken off of the stalks, now was the sifting time. Mixed altogether was millet, dirt, pebbles/rocks, stalks and probably other stuff that I ignored. So, earlier in the morning before I got there a car came out and drove over all of the millet to break it up and off of the stalks. What was left needed to be swept into piles and then sifted until only the good part – the millet was left. Of course, we only worked for maybe a little over an hour because they were all like, “Oh, you poor thing, you must be tired. We know you’re not used to this, why don’t you go sit down and rest.” Um, okay.

Using the power of wind and gravity to separate the millet from the sand and other debris.

Love this photo - all of the women working together.

And then there's me, sweeping millet into piles to later to separated.

Cotton Fun:

Also being in my comfy city – in the North might I mention – I haven’t seen cotton growing, let alone huge piles just asking to be jumped in. After biking back from MaryVirginia’s market town, we spotted the cotton and politely asked the farmer if we could “look at the cotton.” Either MaryVirginia didn’t know how to ask if we could jump in the cotton in Bambara, or she already knew the answer. Before he could think twice about saying yes, the fun had already started.

On our ride back from M'Pessoba.

Piles of cotton ready to be piled in a big truck and taken away. Not before they could be jumped around in though!

MaryVirginia taking flight and landing in the cotton.

These action shots are great - me landing in a pile of cotton while Malians watch and think that we're crazy.

MaryVirginia took this picture of me and later exclaimed, "This should be in National Geographic!" I'm thrilled and throwing cotton in the air.

MaryVirginia and me getting into trouble!

MaryVirginia in her Element:

Like I said, any part of going to village is meeting and greeting all friends and family and pretty much anyone MaryVirginia has ever mentioned. I love this though, because you get to put a name – and stories – with a face and plus, we’re all proud of our site friends and family. So, here is the Debela rundown…

This is Randy - that's his American name, named after MaryVirginia's brother - and he's apparently either teething or starving because her arm sure was tasting good.

MaryVirginia with her matron's daughter.

I could make something ridiculous up for this photo, but it's just MaryVirginia loving the Debela donkies.

Greetings are important and photos of them are too. Her Dad even changed into nice clothes just for the photo.

Mom and Police...look how cute he is.

I had an awesome time en brusse and I can’t wait to go back. Especially because we told her family I would be coming back, it looks like I have to now! I’m not sure if I can endure hot season out there without my ceiling fans and ice water, but it could be a nice test. We’ll see.

The debauchery continues after Christmas and for New Years when MaryVirginia and I will get together again. Stay tuned.

AIDS Day in Sikasso

2007-12-11T10:14:00.001Z

As you know – or should know – International AIDS Day is December 1st. Here in Mali, though the AIDS rates aren’t nearly as bad as in other parts of the continent, there still are awareness campaigns and a drive to protect yourself again contracting the disease. My friend Trinh – oddly enough who I went to school with at GWU – lives in the southern part of Mali, the region called Sikasso. She lives in the regional capital and had been working really hard on putting together an AIDS Day event with a local youth group. After vacillating back and forth, I finally decided to get my butt on public transport and get down to Sikasso. Her event was a great success. There was a lecture in the morning and a basketball tournament in the afternoon with an information fair.

Here's Trinh giving her introduction speech. So nervous, but she did a great job!

Apparently Malians wanted to see American girls play basketball so some PCVs got together and played. Of course, they didn’t know they were playing against Malian men, but, what’s a little surprise here and there. Of course, afterwards there was a men’s game and a women’s game. The women kicked ass!

PCVs and Malians shaking hands before the game. We lost, 4-0, but it was only a 5 minute game. It could have turned around!

Here's part of the girls' game where they kicked butt!

The information fair was really awesome too. There were stands handing out free condoms with demonstrations of how to use both the male and the female condom. PCVs headed tables giving the facts about contracting HIV/AIDS and asking kids to define themselves using, “I am…” as a beginner. That was a little tougher to convey, but we got some good ones.

This table was dedicated to putting acts, both sexual and non sexual, into the risk categories of contracting HIV/AIDS. I think it was brilliant.

Here's Sarah trying to get Malian kids to define themselves using "I am," "I can," or "I want" as leading statements. She wasn't too thrilled with the outcome, but it's an interesting exercise nonetheless.

Here they set up a tent to do confidential HIV/AIDS testing. We were in charge of getting people testing, but it's a difficult job.

It was a really great event and Trinh put a lot of work into it. So, thanks to her for dealing with Mali and thanks to all of the other PCVs who showed up to support the cause.

Some Fun - Questionnaire Style

2007-11-28T10:21:00.000Z

My sister emailed this to me and I actually thought it'd be cool to put up on my blog. So, enjoying learning a little about me:

This is fun, please respond...directions at the end...

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1) Peace Corps Volunteer
2) McDonalds
3) Retail Galore
4) Working for “The Man” at DOJ

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1) Shrek
2) Kal Ho Naa Ho (Bollywood Movie)
3) Bring it On
4) Mars Attacks

C) Four places I have lived:
1) Washington, D.C.
2) Chennai, India
3) Brussels, Belgium
4) Mali, West Africa

D) Four TV Shows that I watched (before moving to Mali):
1. What Not to Wear
2. Project Runway
3. America’s Next Top Model
4. Family Guy

D.2) Four TV Shows that I watch (since moving to Mali):
1. The Office
2. Scrubs
3. House
4. How I Met Your Mother

E) Four places I have been:
1. The Taj Mahal
2. Machu Pichu
3. Timbuktu – yes, it exists!
4. The Parthanon

F) Four of my favorite foods:
1. Tigidigina, or peanut butter sauce for you non Bambara speakers.
2. Chipotle burritos, with lots of cheese and sour cream.
3. Cookies and Cream ice cream
4. Pad Thai

G) 4 places I'd rather be right now:
1. Right where I’m at – I’m living my dream!
2. Milan, Italy
3. A beach in Thailand
4. Home with Mom.

H) Things I am looking forward to in 2008:
1. New development projects
2. Mom and Beth visiting!
3. Seeing where a relationship goes
4. Enjoying every moment in Mali!

Dr. Fatoumata Cisse - or so they say!

2007-11-21T09:26:00.000Z

One of my very first blog posts was about garibouts and their plight here and how I hate it. I’ll often get into heated arguments with Malians about garibouts because the situation is just something I don’t believe in. Send your child to Koranic school, not to live as a beggar on the streets with a “teacher” who – based on the following story – doesn’t give a damn.

As PC Baba’s is in the center of town, and because he’s very gracious with garibouts, dozens pass by each day. Whether it’s just to ask for a sip of water or ask for some money or greet, they’re always around. I’ve befriended quite a group because I’m never too shy to say hello to them and ask how they are. I don’t give money – because that goes directly to the marabout - , I occasionally give food, but it’s important for me to at least say hi. They’re just kids. Anyway, about two or three months back at Baba’s, I saw one garibout who looked really sick. Very skeletal and just his gait showed that things could have been better. I didn’t give him anything bit I continued to see him around. I would greet him and he would sadly reply that he was fine – this is very Malian, you always say that all is well – in a very low voice. With being really busy the last month or so, I haven’t seen him around. Last Thursday, all of that changed. I was standing at my friend the leather worker’s boutique and I saw him. It’s not uncommon for the garibouts to wear tattered clothes and be dirty, but what I saw went beyond any of this. He stood there looking at me with his mouth hanging open like he was too weak to keep it closed; his clothes were filthy and ripped; his arms and legs had lesions all over them, some of them infected. His general state of hygiene was terrible. I immediately demanded where he lived and who his marabout was because I needed to talk to him about the health of this child. The people standing near me said that they didn’t know but that they would find out for me, even possibly talk to the marabout, and let me know. That night I got a call saying that the marabout had been located and told that I wanted to help this little boy. The marabout refused my help for no good reason. I didn’t know what to do at that point. It didn’t think it was culturally appropriate to just take this boy to the clinic myself and I didn’t want to rub anyone – let alone a religious figure – the wrong way. The next day I was at Baba’s and this boy came by. I immediately told Baba the story of what had happened and he said, “Okay, no problem, we’ll take care of it.” We called Sacko – someone who works with us at Farafina Tigne – over and we talked to the boy. His friend was standing next to him and we found that he had a very infected sore on his neck – like he was hit was something. Sacko and I took both of these little boys to the hospital next to Baba’s – which I didn’t know existed until that day – and they had consultations and I was given the prescriptions that they needed. They waited at the hospital while I went to the pharmacy to pick up the medicine. For the first garibout, we were given a couple of different oral medications along with a powder that needed to be mixed with water for bathing. The second was a pill along with some betadine and bandages. Okay, problem solved. We took care of both of them, bathed them and got them going. It was easy. We told them to come back twice a day – in the morning and evening – to get their medicine and like that, all would be well. This shouldn’t have been a problem considering they’re told to go out in the morning and evening to beg for food. Well, for the next few days it was hit or miss – sometimes they came in the morning and not the evening, sometimes only one of them came, sometimes neither of them came. It gets better. The first day that we went to the hospital I bought real good and hot food for them. They all sat around and ate until their stomachs were full. However, while we were in the process of getting the food the second boy said, “I’m not hungry, give me money instead.” Talk about frustrating! The good news is that even today, though the medicine isn’t finished, both of them are looking healthier. The first boy’s lesions have started to heal and he’s walking around with more confidence. The second’s infection is going away and I even played doctor and changed the dressings yesterday myself.

Now, I’m not looking for a pat on the back for this. It was my humanitarian duty to take care of a child who – I honestly thought by looking at him – was going to die. Even though these kinds of acts of kindness aren’t sustainable, sustainability and kindness don’t always have to go hand in hand. Well, now that I’ve given the heartwrenching and endearing side of the story, here’s the part where I get pissed. And here’s the big question – why can’t these marabouts take care of the children they’re “given?” I understand that they can’t be given the most expensive foods or bought expensive things. And somewhere in the back of my heart, I understand the reasoning for sending these kids to beg and have to endure the hardship of those less fortunate. What I don’t understand is how these children are huddled together sleeping on the ground – a mat if they’re lucky, not bathed, not given water or soap for bathing, don’t have their clothes washed, often have clothes with gaping holes in them, don’t wear shoes, are given a certain amount of money they have to come home with on a daily basis or their beaten, and how if they don’t find food by begging the don’t eat. The most glaring thing for me is to see a child who is so obviously sick and you don’t do anything about it. Again, I’m not asking that each kid takes his daily Flinstone’s vitamin, but what I am asking for is some compassion. Where’s the problem with someone wanting to give you the medicine for one of your sick kids? How are you going to dismiss that and say, “No thanks?” My mind is spinning so quickly because I can’t understand any of this. We were forced to keep the medicine and bandages at Farafina Tigne in case the marabout wouldn’t administer them to the two ailing kids. Is that normal? Someone gives you medicine for free and you’re going to throw it away and not help a child? I’m baffled. And for this, I’ve been a little more than negative about the plight of humanity. These people are supposed to be here for a higher religious purpose and yet you beat your children if they don’t bring home money and you can’t take care of their basic necessities in life? What is happening to us?