Off to the field

Tomorrow is the big day - our departure for Nara (near the Mauritania border) and Kolokani. I'm excited and I told my parents via Skype tonight that this kind of work seems to combine my favorite things: nutrition, working with children and mothers, and camping. We'll see if I still love the camping part of this in another week.

I'm a bit nervous, simply because of the unknown of it all at this point. The advice I receive is "stay healthy!" I'm careful about what I eat, and take precautions with fruit, for instance - peel it, cook it, boil it, or forget it. If offered home-cooked food, I know that it's best to eat it only if it's piping hot, and generally I've followed that advice. I'm taking anti-malarials and have medicine for a variety of traveler's ailments, and I'll be sleeping in a tent treated to keep out skeeters. But, you just never know and word on the street is that it is NO fun to be sick in the field.

However, I have placed a lot of faith in the people I'm going with - they have more experience than I do and are an enthusiastic, roll with it-kind of group. It's bound to be very hard work, but I anticipate lots of laughs, too (and probably many at my expense, hopefully good-naturedly).

We went to the market this evening to stock up on nuts and biscuits, coffee and tea, oatmeal and dried fruit, tins of tuna and water - sustenance for desperate times in the desert. I enjoyed a hearty final supper tonight at San Toro in Bamako and relished 3 of my favorite things: bissap, brochette de capitaine, and grilled plaintains. The decor inside the restaurant is all things Malian, with furniture and batiks from Dogon Country, and even live music on traditional instruments.

We'll spend about 3 weeks in the field sans internet or phone reception so it'll be back to only pen and paper journaling for a while. We rented chargers for the computers to run off of the car batteries for data entry but I don't anticipate having access to email until mid-November. However, I expect that by the time I check in my inbox will be flooded with emails titled: Obama wins!

Getting by with a little help

We've just completed a week of training the interviewers for the nutrition survey and did a full day of pilot-testing in a village located about an hour outside of Bamako yesterday, in Kolokani. The team is fantastic – most of the interviewers are public health or medical students who seem motivated to learn and enthusiastic about doing a good job collecting data. The questionnaires have been translated from English into French and now the interviewers will read the questions in French but will conduct the interviews in Bambara. A few of the interviewers have decided to teach me a phrase of Bambara a day. So far, I can say « Ani Sogoma » (hello), « I ni tié » (thank you), and « Ne Togo Shelby » (My name is Shelby). The reactions from native speakers is hysterical, it’s definitely a great ice breaker since it always generates a smile, if not a hearty laugh.

Yesterday I sat under a tree and observed one of the interviews with a mother of 5 while she prepared lunch – ground flour and water mixed into a thick porridge over an open fire. Like many adults here, she was missing teeth and wore a t–shirt torn at the shoulders and flip flops, and her children were right by her side the entire time. She was such a gracious hostess, offering me a sturdy wooden chair to sit in and offered the interviewer a short wooden stool so that we didn’t have to sit on the ground. She waved me over to try my hand at stirring the pot and it was stiff so I stirred it slowly. She smiled at me and took the wooden paddle out of my hands and started to stir – but about 20 times faster than I had mixed the pot. I felt so pathetic watching her working so hard while I could barely stir at a fraction of her pace, but we all laughed together and pointed at our biceps.

Midway through the interview, school was out for lunchtime and a dozen older kids walked by and, seeing us, ran over. Every single of one them shook my hand and greeted me, smiling and looking at me with wide, curious eyes, elbowing each other for their turn to shake my hand. Just as quickly as they had arrived, they were once again on their way. I couldn't stop smiling for about 10 minutes. They were absolutely adorable.

I loved being in the village. I felt totally awkward yet surprisingly relaxed. It was ridiculously hot yesterday (about 96F) and not a cloud in the sky, I felt like I was getting burned through my long sleeve shirt, long pants, hat, sunglasses, and 45SPF. Sitting under a huge, old tree after completing the first round of interviews I relaxed and started to appreciate the art of just sitting. I watched some of the interviewers take a plastic teapot of water and wash their hands, mouth, face, and feet before going into the mosque to pray. We shared oranges and peanuts, and this wild fruit called sousoum – it looks like an artichoke on the outside but it grows on trees and when you crack it open like a nut, the seeds are black and larger than watermelons, but the fruit is white and sweet. While I was observing another interview, a women walked over and said, « Shelby ! Try this ! » (By the way, people often go by their last names here, so for days this woman called me Wilson.)

The survey team won’t let me take myself too seriously, it’s great. They help me with my French vocabulary and are very forgiving when I botch the grammar. I gave a presentation on measuring mid-upper arm circumference (the primary indicator of nutritional status in kids) during training on Wednesday, basically reading my PowerPoint, but was surprised by how smoothly it went. A couple of interviewers even volunteered to help demonstrate how to take the measurements and I was very grateful for their willingness to help. In the middle of the presentation, I asked the group how to say a word, and afterwards, one of the interviewers came up to me and opened my French-English dictionary and pointed out the word, so that I would know how to spell it. They’re a very patient group.

There are 13 interviewers, 2 data entry guys, 4 supervisors, and 4 drivers. En route to the village yesterday, 4 of us rode « en Tortur », as they call the back of land cruiser where there are 2 fold-down seats that seat 4 (without luggage). I cracked up when I heard the term, because it’s true – every time the car goes over a bump, hits a pot hole, or leaves the paved road, I feel like I need a helmet. One of our transport vehicles is an ambulance – a white 4x4 with enough seating in back for 10!

We were jamming to Alpha Blondy when our car stopped suddenly on the main road between towns and the driver ran behind the car. I wondered what on earth was going on, a flat tire? Nope, he continued running and picked up a some small creature lying in the road and ran back to the car, tossing the bird (which looked like a falcon) between the spare tire and the rear window. I let out a screech as the bird hit the window and my eyes were watering because I was laughing so hard. The 3 guys trapped in Tortur with me did not know what to do with me, so they just laughed, too. When we arrived at the town, the drivers presented the bird to the village chief. Some cultures bring a bottle of wine to a host, others bring roadkill. Awesome.

The FOMS

I had the FOMS a couple of weeks ago. (FOMS is code for Fear of Missing Something.) I felt like my days were restricted to doing paperwork by myself in the office and the hotel, and felt frustrated by not being able to see more of Bamako, convinced that there was indeed much more to see and do. In truth, there’s not a ton ‘to do’ here. I’d still like to see that museum and the botanical gardens, and another market, but the crowds of people and the heat are difficult adjustments. There’s not really a central space where people just wander. I’ve been looking for a map of Bamako but have yet to find one. A map of Bamako on Google yields two yellow lines denoting the main roads in and out, one blue line that signals the Niger River, and “Bamako” written next to a dot. It was explained to me that there’s no structure here in which to map – the street on which the office is located is a numbered route, but the street isn’t marked, and I actually thought that it was just a long dirt driveway on which the office was located, until I was told that it’s a street.

Casually running errands downtown and stopping for a coffee and taking in the sights is just not something that people do here. There were a couple of errands I had wanted to take care of – like buying an adapter for my mobile phone. I’m used to doing these seemingly mundane things independently at home, but here I am quickly learning to ask for help and to accept help. I asked one of the drivers at work “Where can I pick up an adapter?” and the response was “Let me see your phone. Do you have some money?” I handed him my phone and the equivalent of 5 bucks in cash. Two hours later, he marched into my office and proudly handed me my phone, a working charger, and the change. “Voila!” he smiled.

People here rely on each other and I’m learning that it’s in one’s best interest to get on board with the cooperative mindset prevalent here. I would have gotten lost in search of “downtown” (let alone the shop that sells chargers), and suspect that I would have ended up paying much more than 5 dollars and would have spent the better part of an entire afternoon in the process. Much easier to let people who are willing to help do so, since they know the right people and apparently really don’t mind.

It's hard to adjust to the way of life here without making comparisons. Everywhere you look something is broken: cracked windows, paint peeling from walls, or bicycles with bent wheels. Trash is carelessly discarded and littered along the roads or it collects in heaps in front of houses or shops or pushed aside into fields. Sometimes the smell of burning trash burns the back of my throat, especially on hot, still evenings when there's no breeze.

Despite missing people and parts of my routine at home, I’m adjusting. Instead of running (because the roads are too narrow to dodge traffic and the air pollution), I take advantage of the swimming pool at the hotel and swim every day after work, or in the mornings on weekends. I read a lot in the evenings, or end up lingering over dinner with my co-worker, since she has some classic stories and a great sense of humor. We've gone out to a few places to eat, too. It’s a different pace, but I’m learning that it can be a nice pace.

We’ve finally begun training our interviewers for the survey this week, and they are such a fun group. My views of Bamako are changing quickly after getting to know some people here – they are so friendly and you just can’t take yourself too seriously around them. I know I’m missing things at home, and probably things in Bamako, but I can’t do it all so might as well enjoy what I can!

Barack Obama is my president

I was going to run the hash yesterday - a running group that has clubs all over the world - to get some exercise, meet some people, see other parts of Bamako, but my plan quickly went out the window when I was invited to the home of the sister of a friend of a friend for the afternoon. It was really a treat to attend a house-warming feast with an entire family. We arrived shortly after 1 pm and proceeded to eat for the following 4 hours. The house was located in a newly developed neighborhood across the river in Bamako.

The women had been cooking outside in the backyard since 8 am and the heat was practically unbearable in the direct sun by the time we arrived, but there were a half dozen women cooking sauces and couscous in giant metal pots perched on 3 or 4 rocks, over open flames, and baking bread and dividing up meat. Some of the women had babies on their backs, wrapped in cloth around their middles. There was no air conditioning or fans inside, where all the men were sitting, and where we ended up eating. There were lots of kids - nieces and nephews - all of whom looked at me curiously or would shyly smile while hiding behind a mother's leg. Two little ones outright starting crying when I said hello to them.

We ate in 3 rounds - couscous with red tomato sauce and sheep meat, beans and onions cooked in vinegar and oil, and then the fresh-baked bread (it was like pizza dough, but more delicious) to dip in another meat sauce. I couldn't believe how tirelessly the women worked while we and all the men sat inside.

My co-worker gave one of the brothers an Obama pin and a lively discussion ensued about the upcoming elections. Two of the guys staged a mock debate between Obama and McCain while I was the moderator. I still miss at least half of what's said in French, but we laughed a lot when one of them started talking about Joe the Plumber. Asked who won the debate, one of the guys at the table starting chanting (with a Malian French accent), "Barrrrack O-bama is my president!" I'm still amazed by how much of American politics are followed by people here, when I was proud of myself for just knowing the name of the Malian president. CNN is always on and it's advertising the election as an election that will change the world - to affect change around the globe.

Parts of an interview with Kofi Annan that I heard on CNN have continued to run through my mind: the $700 billion that Congress came up with in a short time for the financial bailout is equivalent to all of the resources given to Africa in a decade. He said that we need to treat poverty, starvation, and hunger with the same urgency as we've dealt with the financial crisis. Seeing how unfairly resources are distributed worldwide, and how closely people are following the elections, it underscores the importance of a positive change in leadership and representation in the US. Several people here have asked me who I plan to vote for and my response is always, "Obama, of course!" I always see big smiles in turn and they seem happy to hear that I already cast my vote before I left the US on this trip. The Republicans' campaign has turned nasty and distasteful, and it would be a real shame to miss this opportunity to elect a new representative of America. We'll be in the field when the election happens but I hope that we'll all be able to say that indeed, Barack Obama is my president!

I carried a watermelon

Yesterday I was standing in the reception area of our office waiting to talk with someone when one of the guys at work took my arm and playfully nudged me, saying “Walk out the door!” I was puzzled (par for course these days, I’m afraid) but followed as he opened the front door and led me 10 yards outside to the front gate of the office where the security guard was sitting in an old lawn chair, sipping tea under a tree. He stretched out his arms with palms facing the sun, threw his head back, smiled, and said, “C’est bon, n’est pas?” I tried to mimic his enthusiasm for standing outside in the noon heat, took a deep breath (nearly choked since one could cut the air with a knife) and half-heartedly agreed, “Yes, it’s nice.”

We stood there for a few minutes, admiring the dirt road. I asked if those were homes across the street. One house, yes, but beyond the wall directly across the street is a Protestant church. I was surprised, since every evening I hear calls to prayer at the nearby mosques. As we were talking about religion, still standing in front of the office, a guy sauntered by with a rickety wooden wheelbarrow-like push-cart full of watermelons. He stopped and my co-worker started chatting with him. I was quickly lost when the conversation carried on in Bambara. I sensed that they were bargaining and evaluating the quality of the melons, as the seller held one up and rapped his knuckles on it, nodding vigorously that it was indeed a good melon. My co-worker handed the seller 350 CFA and the seller shook his head. Voices were raised, sentences shortened, and the tone became terse. My co-worker took the money back and made a dramatic display of dropping the coins back into his wallet and waved the seller on his way.

Once the man and the melons had disappeared around the corner, past a group of men fixing a flat tire on an old Peugeot sedan, I asked how much the seller was asking. The response was “500 CFA.” I was incredulous – so much haggling over the equivalent of a quarter?

I was still mulling it over when my co-worker shouted to the guys at the corner, asking them to call for the watermelon man. A few minutes later the cart of melons and the man pushing them re-appeared. This time, 400 CFA was offered by my co-worker and the same melon landed in my hands without me uttering a word. My co-worker laughed, slapped my back, and did a little dance like football players do in the end zone after a touchdown.

After the victory, we returned to the office where the fans were circulating the air and another co-worker looked at me and laughed with a look on her face saying “What is going on?” We marched straight into the kitchen and sliced the melon into two dozen wedges for everyone. The slightly run-down, tired kitchen suddenly brightened with the colors in everyone’s bubus (the traditional style of dress – long, loosely flowing fabrics with intricate stitched designs and splashes of color) as they circulated through to pick up sections of melon.

The melon looked delicious. The color was bright red and the juice dripped all over the counter, making a mess with each cut. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into something so refreshing after standing outside in the sun. I took a bite and quickly tried to hide the shocked expression that must have crossed my face: it was hot! Well, of course it would be after it had been peddling around outside at noon. Still, it tasted sweet and I quickly got over the fact that I was devouring warm watermelon.

I felt a little strange spitting out watermelon seeds on the ground in the backyard near where the two cows had last stood before they met their end at Ramadan. But then I smiled to myself, giggling that – smack in the middle of the work day – we had just bought an entire watermelon for 80 cents. Cheap thrills.

Negotiations and ice cream

The markets sell everything and prices are open to negotiation. Under corrugated metal roofs perched on wooden posts, one can find Fanta and Coca-Cola in bottles; sparkly jelly sandals; burlap sacks full of grains and spices, tomatoes and onions; circular blue and green plastic bins for washing; tires; rusty pipes; driftwood lumber; concrete blocks; gasoline parceled out in old plastic water bottles or empty vodka bottles; clothing; luggage; furniture (wooden bedframes, oversized recliner chairs, tables); wooden crafts; sculpted masks; jewelry. It's a beader's paradise here. People buy fabrics which are made into clothing by seamstresses and then dyed vibrant colors and patterns. The supermarkets and department stores in the US seem very far away.

I surprised myself with my negotiation skills today. The merchants routinely quote foreigners prices that are three times the prices quoted to locals, so I learned to immediately divide a price by a third and then start negotiating. The merchants are relentless in heckling customers – if you run your fingers over one necklace, they hand you that necklace as well as six others. They’ll start showing you other items for sale, too, polishing metals and cleaning wooden pieces with rags to entice a sale. I sat down with merchants in a couple of shops and reviewed the items that I’d chosen, and then began bargaining. As long as one’s not in a hurry, it’s a fun experiment. I sort of felt like Ralphie's dad in "A Christmas Story" when he negotiates the price of the Christmas tree, both sides feeling the thrill of a bargain when the deal is settled. As we left, even my colleague said that she was impressed.

I had my first Malian ice cream today: a scoop of papaya under a scoop of chocolate. Absolutely divine! We ran into two other girls whom we had met last week at the dinner where I discovered bissap and ginger. They were friendly and invited us to join their table, and showed us their purchases from the market, where we were headed next. I was initially intimidated by them because both are French and had spoken so fast in conversation at the party, but today I followed along (at least the topics) and even chimed in here and there. Hurray for small triumphs.

Early perceptions of Mali

I've received questions about things have have surprised me, my impressions of people's daily lives and living situations, and how people are responding to me. Although I've only been in Africa for a couple of weeks, I thought I'd try to articulate some of my early perceptions, since it will be interesting to see how they change, or don't, over time.

Mali is one of the poorest countries on earth. It ranks 173rd out of 177 countries using the human development index, which describes the relationship between income and well-being (measuring life expectancy, education, and standard of living). Mali is heavily dependent on foreign aid and there are obvious inequalities in the distribution of resources – essentially, there is no middle class. I've never visited a place where living conditions for many are basically unacceptable and where extreme poverty is visible everywhere.

Life expectancy is about 50 years and almost a third of Malians are malnourished. The proportion of death attributed to malnutrition is 56%. Half of the population is without access to an improved water source. On average, about 7 children are born to every woman. Infant mortality is extraordinarily high: 103 deaths per 1000 live births (compared with a still unacceptable 7 infant deaths per 1000 live births in the US, which is much higher – i.e., worse – than other modern countries).

Less than a quarter of the Malian population can read and write, and the percentage is even lower for women. Teachers and classroom materials are badly needed. Although French is the national language, 80% of the population speaks Bambara. (The Bambara are Mali’s largest ethnic group.) A couple of times I’ve tried to speak with someone here and have sensed that my French is even worse than I thought, until I realized that it wasn’t French that I was hearing but Bambara. Either way, it's disorienting to not be able to converse effortlessly.

The majority of the Malian population is Muslim. Young boys carry empty coffee tins and beg for money, and they'll follow you down the street. I'm told that they attend madrassas, or Islamic schools, and are required to give the money to their teachers. There are a few bars and markets where alcohol can be purchased. Polygamy is common, and still a radically foreign concept to me. Women are generally marginalized here and I’ve been acutely aware of the assumptions often made of foreigners – as wealthy and demanding of preferential treatment.

The expats go out to dinner together because each can pay for his or her meal, but locals who work with them do not. I'll eat dinner downstairs in the hotel restaurant if we don’t go elsewhere as it’s convenient and reasonable, and there’s no kitchen in which I can cook. The food is clean and well-cooked and, fortunately, my health has held up well so far. A meal with fish or meat and rice or a vegetable costs about US$10. It’s easy to spend that amount, and more, on a meal out in the US and it’s within my per diem spending from the NGO. However, I only see foreginers eating at the restaurant and it feels sheltered.

I take taxis more frequently than I had anticipated. Sidewalks are nonexistent and the word "safe" doesn't exactly come to mind when I think of the minibuses. The local currency is the West African franc (CFA, pronounced “say-fuh”), and the exchange rate is about 1000 CFA: US$2. One leg of a trip in a taxi costs 800-1500 CFA around town, more than many families here can spend in one day. Probably designed to seat about 8 people, the buses may have upwards of 15 people in the back, and break down frequently. Seat belts are rarely found unless riding in a private car like a Land Cruiser owned by the NGO, which transports us from one meeting to another. I'm still adjusting to the concept of riding in cars with drivers.

I’ll never blend in, but there's a lot to be learned from other people and room to appreciate our differences. It might sound naïve now but it’s why we travel, right? I think it's easy for foreigners to be jaded and cynical about the realities of life here, even if it’s not our reality. I can always come home, whereas people here, those lacking even the most basic commodities, don’t have the option to makes changes so readily nor comfortably. It’s disconcerting to be confronted with such inequalities and I’m grappling with the ways in which I respond.

I find that it's easy to misunderstand people in Africa and I try to be unassuming. The pace is drastically different than the US, where I usually feel like I always need to be doing something to make the most of every day. It can be frustrating to observe the relatively slow progression of tasks here in comparison to the US, yet it's pretty much community-based work at its core: community projects take time and you have to be flexible in your timeline and expectations, realizing that delays occur and are often out of one's immediate control. It's not easy.

I remember thinking that it was too bad that I often said hello to friends at school quickly in the hallway as we'd all rush off to class or to work. I've found Malians to be open, friendly, and hospitable. It would be rude for me to not stop and say hello and ask how are you. People walk into meetings and greet each person individually, shaking hands. Mostly, I find that it's unpredictable as to when meetings will actually take place and I'm learning to laugh at myself. Nonetheless, I've felt most welcome here.

A taste of West Africa

I’ve discovered a delicious drink called bissap. It’s dried hibiscus flowers steeped in water, with heaps of sugar added, and served chilled. It's the color of cranberry juice and positively refreshing in this unrelenting heat. I tasted bissap with a twist the other night at a dinner with 20 native French-speakers in Bamako (needless to say, I was uncharacteristically quiet!). They combined ¾ bissap with ¼ ginger brew, where the ginger is grated and steeped in boiling water. The flavor is strong and tart but the ginger cuts the sweetness of the bissap perfectly.

Although it’s not mango season, I had been eating mango, papaya, and watermelon almost daily in Tanzania and then Senegal and Mali. There are piles of huge watermelons in markets by the road and artfully arranged oranges on carts. Bananas available everywhere, so they’re now rotating into my daily intake and I also snack on peanuts (cacahuetes) a lot. Traditional French breakfasts of bread with butter, apricot jam, and Nutella are served with coffee and and milk downstairs in the hotel restaurant, and the boulangeries in both Senegal and Mali display treats like fresh baguettes, pain au chocolat, and colorful fruit tarts. Fresh fish along the coastal regions, in both east and west Africa, is delicious. Brochettes de capitaine (capitaine is a local fish in the western region, it's like perch) is like a fish kebab – skewered chunks of white fish with green and red bell peppers and onions. It’s grilled and served with vegetables like green peas or cooked spinach, and rice.

Last night we went to dinner at a Lebanese restaurant that served up a feast. We waited outside for a taxi back to the hotel and a yellow Mercedes sedan (circa 1986) stopped in front of us. As it approached, I saw something sticking out of the trunk. A few days ago, I had seen a similar taxi carrying a motorbike in the trunk, so naturally, I was curious to see what this one was carrying. Turns out it was the car’s front bumper! So it goes.