Is There a Crate & Barrel in Mali?

Despite my good intentions to stay in village for a solid three weeks, I just got back from the wedding of one of my teammates. I have been feeling a little guilty because I have been running around a lot lately (for mostly work reasons though), and have not been in village for an extended period of time for the last couple of months. And as my time slowly trickles away, I want to make sure I am giving Mandoli enough attention before my departure. So even though I have known for quite some time about this wedding, I had no plans to go until the night before when I realized that I would be missing a really great opportunity. My friend, Amelia, married a Malian man, and they had a traditional Songhai wedding ceremony. I knew that I would never have the chance to see something like this again, let alone from within the family of the bride. So I hopped on a bus Monday night and at 4 am found myself under a blanket of stars in Hombori, a town on the road North to Gao.

The ceremony consisted of a four day confinement period for my friend, where she wore a simple white robe and head scarf, and was not allowed to leave the house or see her husband until the afternoon of the forth day. The first day (Monday) she was draped in scarves and secretly carried off to her waiting house by the women of the village. Some neighboring villages grab the bride, blindfold the woman and make her walk for hours to get to the house, and all the while she is wailing and sobbing as people dance and sing around her. Luckily that is not the custom in Hombori, and Amelia was quietly escorted to the house by a few women while the rest of the village participated in a mock ceremony with a stand-in bride.

After that Amelia was kept under lock and key, and I think that having her mother, sister, and several other volunteers around really meant a lot to her during this time. Not only could we run around and make sure that she had everything she needed, we could also help to alleviate a bit of the tedium of sitting in the same room for four days in a row. Meanwhile, outside her compound, the groom was getting to have all of the fun, and we would abandon Amelia every once in a while to participate in those activities. Mostly they involved lots of dancing and throwing of money by the most well-dressed Malians I have ever seen. I needed to leave before the festivities were over, but Amelia said that the wedding would end on Thursday when Salaam (the groom), would arrive at her house with his entire family; they would receive benedictions, take lots of pictures and socialize until one by one, everyone would depart, and it was just the two of them together as husband and wife. Of course there was the awkward question of where Amelia’s mother and sister would sleep, since they had been staying in the house with her, but hopefully they got that resolved before last night.

And that is pretty much it. It was fascinating, and the locale was breathtaking. I suspect that my villagers will be very pleased that I went when I tell them all of the stories (and very disappointed that the bride was not me – they think I’m defective because I’m not married yet). Now the newlyweds are en route to Bamako to fly back to the states Saturday so that Amelia can start med school Monday morning! So much for a honeymoon.

Some Garden Shots

I didn't have the opportunity to include these with my last update, so I thought that I would throw them in now. Just got word that the road between Bandiagara and Sevare was washed away in a recent storm, so I am curous to see what has happened in my village during the week that I have been away. Hopefully the garden plants have not floated off too.


Baobob seedlings in the garden



A recently planted jujube tree in the garden



View of the garden with the well on the left and the hanger for the tree nursery in the distance








Moringa trees sprouting



More Moringa



Moments after our first rainstorm - this 'river' lasts for a few hours after the storm




Looking down from the waterfall to the natural spring in the valley






View of the valley and the hamlets in the distance



The women's first official visit as an association to the garden

On to Greener Pastures

We just got our first substantial rain two days ago - and the villagers are breathing a collective sigh of relief. June was a tough month; normally the rains start early in the month, and our area didn't see a drop until mid-month, and even that wasn't enough to allow for planting. But the storm yesterday sent everyone out to the fields, and I expect that when I return to village at the end of the week (I just came down to Bamako yesterday), everything will be greening up, and the village will feel like a ghost town with everyone busy in the fields.

But I will have my own fields to go back to as well. Now that the well is finished, I can begin to plant the trees that will be used for live fencing in the garden, mark the plots for the women, and begin planting my demonstration garden. I couldn't be happier. I love going out to the garden everyday to check on the progress of the seedlings, watch the water creep up the well (the water is at least two meters deep - and that was before the big storm the other day), and just enjoy the quiet that has replaced the chaos of the past few months.

I don't want to go into too much detail because it is upsetting, and I just want to move on to the work that lies ahead for the garden, but I will quickly touch on how the well work ended. No surprise, considering how the entire job went, the project ended poorly. The masons denied ever speaking to me about a salary issue (where they wanted more money and I showed them the budget to let them know that it was not a possibility), and because in my stupidity I spoke to them without a third party present, they just said that the conversation never happened, put words in my mouth, and left me with few options. The real kicker was that my former homologue took their side and said that all of the problems with the project were my fault. He also said that the only reason that I was in village or was integrated was thanks to him, and that he is the sole reason that the garden project even got completed. When I asked him to leave my house, he refused, saying that it was more his house than mine. This is coming from a man who chooses to speak in Bamabara in village because he doesn't know the Dogon dialect well enough to converse comfortably, and has spent approxiamately 85% of my service living in another county. What an asswipe. And the cherry on top was that the masons, after all of this, stole $100 worth of tools and explosives from the worksite. Tools that the village still needs to use for the unfinished valley well.

So this, along with unforseen project expenses, left me financially drained, but surprisingly okay otherwise - I think that it was just such a relief to be rid of the masons and all of the accompanying stress that they brought with them. The rains helped to wash all of that away too. It is a start of a new season, and there is still work to be done, so I feel really positive about my last few months. I am eager to see the garden full of healthy green things that will grow if I feed them and won't cheat me out of money or call me a liar.