I have been busy running around lately, taking care of business for the project (thank you to everyone that helped to fund my project - you are wonderful), visiting friends, and basically missing a lot of what has been going on in village. So it had been a while since I had seen my neighbor, Mariam, who has been ill for a very long time. One afternoon last week, her sister came over to my house to tell me that Mariam wanted to speak to me. I was a bit puzzled, but that is nothing new.

I couldn't believe what I saw when I found her. All the color had faded from her skin, which was covering nothing but bone. When I had seen her last, she was visibly ill, but still walking around and very sociable. At the time, I had recommended to her mother, Denday, that she go to Bandiagara to get treated, and the doctor in the neighboring village had suggested the same thing to Mariam. They weren't interested. So I had left it at that. Now two weeks later, Mariam is unable to walk, and she has stopped eating for the most part. She is confined to a mat on the ground for most of the day and night. The strangest part of it all was that no one had spoken about her to me in all of that time. Living in a small village has many advantages, but one very large disadvantage is that everyone knows everyone else's business all of the time. So I knew full-well that everyone knew about Mariam's condition, but no one was talking about it. Or at least not to me. She called me over to give her an IV. When I told her that I didn't have one, and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to administer it, she begged me to find her one. She didn't care; she was desperate. I left totally confused about what was going on, and decided to ask around. It actually only took me one response to figure it out: her husband had died of the same thing last year. Of course - AIDS. I think that the reason that I was so blind to that possiblity was that there really is not a very high rate of HIV infection in my community. For the most part, people tend to stay in village, and they are not coming in contact with people that are at highest risk in this part of the world (prostitutes and truckers). So it didn't even dawn on me. But now it made sense why I had heard so little about her, or why no one had been over to help her out. Or why her own mother, who I talk to everyday, said nothing to me about Mariam. Everyone was scared, so they were pretending that she was not there. Not much is well understood about HIV/AIDS in rural Mali, so there is a large amount of fear surrounding the disease. So much fear, it turns out, that people are willing to turn their backs on their own family - something that I have never seen before in Mali. I was heartbroken for Mariam, and concerned about the message that this was sending to the village about AIDS. I decided to contact the doctor in the neighboring village to find out what I could do. He was very pleased to inform me that there is a non-profit organization that works with the hospital in Bandiagara to provide full health care for people living with AIDS. But the catch is that I would need to get Mariam to Bandiagara for tests in order to then get the care. When I asked her if she would be willing to go, Mariam said with absolutely no hesitation that she would go. So we planned to head out the following morning.

After bundling her up in a sweater and shuffling our way over to my house, Denday arrived just in time to tell me that Mariam was not permitted to go. When asked why, she said that money was the problem. I said that she could use the money that she was putting away to buy a peanut grinder, but she let me know in no uncertain terms that the peanut grinder was more important than this trip. So I told Mariam the bad news, walked her home, and then locked myself in my house and cried. After realizing that that was going to accomplish nothing, I biked back over to the neighboring village of Ouo to speak with the doctor again. He said he would come by that afternoon to see if he could help straighten out some of Denday's ideas about the illness. He was masterful, and Denday agreed that she would accompany Mariam the following morning to Bandiagara.

My neighbor agreed to take us to the road on his donkey cart so that Mariam would not have to walk the 1.5 rocky kilometers to the road. Again the next morning, I bundled up Mariam and sat her down at my house, only to discover that Denday had changed her mind, and she would not be accompanying Mariam to the hospital. I would have to go on my own, which was not ideal, but feasible. When I asked my neighbor if the donkey cart was ready, he told me that Mariam was "dirty" and that he would not take her. I decided that it was time for the village chief to intervene, so I told him of the situation, and he made my neighbor prepare the cart for us. It is nice having the chief on my side. As we loaded up, and I braced myself so that Mariam could lean against me for support, everyone disappeared into their houses. Usually a departure from village involves lengthly goodbyes with lots of benedictions and requests for items from town. No one said anything; they all went inside to hide, because they couldn't look at her, and knew that she would be able to see their fear and shame. It was horrible and lonely, and I couldn't believe that this poor woman was stuck with just me. As the sun was rising, we headed off on our own, and made it about half way up the hill when I turned back to see a figure running up to us. The sun made it impossible to tell who it was, and it wasn't until he was almost next to the cart that I realized it was the chief of the village. I cannot begin to describe the significance of that act, and I will forever be grateful for his amazing show of support. He did such a good thing. What a good man.

I will tell you about the trip to the hospital in the next blog - sorry, I'm exhausted.

Catching Up Part II

I’ve gone from feeling like nothing is going on to all of the sudden feeling like I can’t keep track of all of the plans for my village. As you may or may not have seen, my project is now currently posted at the Peace Corps website. Just visit http://www.peacecorps.gov/ and click on the “Donate Now” tab. You can find me and my village in the Africa/Mali section under "Choose a Region". This is all very exciting. So the fact that my project is finally up on the website means that it’s time for me to get to work. I spent so many months waiting that I was starting to lose hope, or more accurately, lose focus. But now it looks like the time has arrived, so I guess I better figure out what the hell I'm doing. My homologue and I met with two potential contractors for the well work, and it looks like we will be choosing an independent contractor based out of Bankass. He was very interested in developing and maintaining a positive community spirit for the project, which will be important when my villagers are digging 60-some meters of well holes by hand. I honestly don’t know how they are going to do it. The thought of banging at rocks with sledgehammers for three months in 100° plus heat is a bit overwhelming for me. It makes me wonder how soon I can escape to Ghana to lay on the beach and drink good (cheap) beer. It’s a good thing that I’m not in charge of inspiring the villagers! But they can do it. They worked just as hard under the same conditions to build the road that is in my village, and that is gorgeous. It reminds me of the Great Wall of China every time I am on it. As for me, I’m going crazy right now with all of the planning for the project: buying all the materials and figuring out how they will be transported to my village, getting the areas for the plant nursery and the garden in order, and arranging the dates for meeting with the village elders, the contractor, the workers, and anyone else who needs to know what is going to be happening in village for the next few months. It is really exciting, but really stressful. I certainly never anticipated that I would be supervising a construction project while I was here. It’s going to be such a rush to see this all come together. In the meantime, I'm keeping busy with a few other smaller projects. I am in Sevare just for the day (If I actually get into Sevare, get all of my work done, and back to village in the same day, I will be amazed. That will be a first.) to buy supplies for a cloth dying project in my village on Monday, and also to print out labels for grain-selling enterprise that the women's association in the neighboring village is undertaking. When it is written down like this, it seems like I am really busy. Don't bee fooled. I will have to keep this in mind next time I find myself sitting at home watching the geckos climb the walls.

Oh yeah - I posted an old blog today that I never published too since I had the time. Enjoy.

Catching Up Part I

Well I apologize for the lapse in communication for so many months. There has been all sorts of stuff going on as of late. My mom spent the Christmas and New Year’s holidays with me here, which was fantastic, albeit exhausting. I think my villagers have finally forgiven me for the brevity of her visit, but when we left I was not sure if I was going to be welcomed back. I also came to the sad conclusion that during her three day visit to my site, my mom did more than I have done in my entire year here. Within a day she was seeing patients at my house for morning and evening medical appointments, and I somehow turned into receptionist/translator. Which served my mother well as she was vigorously trying to scrub away what she thought was dead skin on the wounded hand of a little boy, but what turned out to be the nub of his sixth finger. I was happy that I could be of use in that situation, because otherwise I think my mom would have been scrubbing a long time. And within that short period of time, many people were already starting to see improvements in their condition, so of course word spread, and pretty soon there was a line out my door. Yeah, so no wonder my village was pissed when she left; I think that they would have been content to trade me in for her.

After my mom left, I ran back to village to celebrate Tabaski, which is a pretty big Muslim holiday with lots of goat slaughtering. It was fun, I even dressed up and put on earrings (my village loves when I look girlie, and believe me, it doesn’t happen too often anymore). I received three racks of ribs and a huge hunk of smoked goat meat. Right now you are probably wondering what I, the former vegetarian, did with all of that meat. I made rib sauce. And I had ribs for dinner, and breakfast the next morning. As I was eating them, I was trying to think of a single occasion in the States where I ate ribs, and I couldn’t think of any. And I certainly never cooked them. So I will admit that I was pretty proud of the fact that I made a damn fine rib sauce (especially with the few ingredients available). As for the huge hunk of goat meat, after eating ribs for breakfast, I decided that I reached my limit, so my cat will be eating goat jerky for the next few months.

I was only in village for a week before heading back down to Bamako for a Peace Corps agriculture/agroforestry training session. My homologue and the president of a local chicken-raising association came as well. It was a big success with everyone, and now my homologue is full of ideas and energy, which is good, because we have a lot of work ahead of us. I am starting to make all of the plans for the well/garden project in my village. Yes, I am well aware that the project is nowhere to be found at the Peace Corps website as I promised, but I am going to hope for the best and plan as if the funds will be here. It will happen. It has to happen, because there is no translation for “bureaucratic red tape” in Dogon.