Mission

I had a difficult but incredibly educational mission en brousse. First of all, lots of staff were in the field, but literally, all men. Except for our PHP officer, but she was out in a village for the Nutrition training. It gets unnerving sometimes. 

I appreciate the radio director because he takes the time to understand what we’re looking for. The president of the assoc. that runs the radio is somewhat of a formality and most decisions are made by the director unilaterally--so I hope to talk to them a little about management and governance. The Mayor amuses me—a typical politician who speaks in a very exact French of France (the South near Marseilles according to a friend of mine from Lorraine). It will take me awhile to learn the politics of the town and who to go to for what service. Such as organising. The animators of the radio asked for 100.000F CFA! And here I thought working as a white person is tough—working with an NGO known to dispense cash is even harder! Gah, some of the precedents we’ve set like say, paying chefs to come in from village to participate, bother me. Coming back through Bourem I saw the costumes and the work the theater group had accomplished. It will be interesting to see how they "play," especially one cross-dressing actor who will also play the mosquito.

The Mayor said something that I think is one of the biggest barriers to development. The population has never been decolonized. They are still accustomed to having everything come from outside. The only solution as I see it? Stop all interventions. All funding. And I know, White Man’s Burden and our guilt persist. Well, we need to stop making it worse. Can we let them develop themselves for a generation according to their mores and objectives and see what happens?

Persisting

What an auspicious day for the Chinese, 8-8-08 and the opening ceremonies of a day they have been waiting and preparing forever it seems...their debut on the international event-planning and execution stage.

For me, it is another day at a great job—Oxfam (I work in the bureau of Gao) has named me sensibilisatrice to their Promotion Santé Publique project based in Bamba. Bamba is a commune seat (where the mayor works) situated between massive dunes and the banks of the Niger River. So I ask myself when they build the hydroelectric dam in Tausa on the road between Bourem (circle seat where the Prefecture is) and Bamba, where will the displaced persons go? Nearly all agricultural production is situated on large islands where the water is sufficient to cultivate rice, the aliment du base; this poses a problem when the islands are submersed as water levels rise due to the damming. WFP finds the commune food secure; and yet, many prefer to grow the cash crop of tobacco rather than rice. Little to no gardening is pursued during the cold season when most villages along the river produce carrots, manioc, potatoes, squash, beans, tomatoes, eggplant, and sweet potatoes. This is probably the cause of the 16.1% rate of acute malnutrition in children under five—a rate higher than found in crisis regions of Niger during the 2004-2005 locust/price/flooding induced drought and food crunch. Mali’s global acute malnutrition rate is 13.3%. This measures height versus weight. When you take into consideration chronic malnutrition or stunting, the statistics point to a larger problem: 33.9% of Malian children 6 – 59 months are chronically malnourished. With high fertility rates and low literacy rates I wonder without industry and most support coming in from NGOs or Malians abroad (and by abroad that includes not just Western countries but also Cote d’Ivoire or Senegal as well where many Malian men flee to find work), how will things improve? The global increases of prices, climate change and disease epidemics are all working against these farmers and herdsmen. The Prefet in Bourem tells us there has not been a sufficient amount of rain this year either. And granaries, which were filled in 2005, are empty. Infrequently WFP or a local group funds a few tons of millet or rice for the granaries but it is never enough. Not only that, but it is not local production and therefore hardly sustainable. A sack of millet (20kg) is up to 15,000F and rice sells at 550F per kilo (up from 300F in 2006). He feels like food security is a question of simple survival—no planning, no economizing. In this inch’allah culture it is for God to decide what tomorrow will bring.

Bamba itself is lovely. The roller coaster ride through the dunes was difficult to bear, but suddenly when you cross the Zan-Zan plain (where camels and goats roam) and surmount the last thread of dunes it is the vast flood plain and rice paddies of the Niger dotted with fishermen and farmers that lies before you. Hippos peak their ears out of the water and kingfishers dive for lunch.

In between visits to the Mayor, village level health centers, and the radio I enjoyed speaking with the locals as facilitated by my Songhoy (evidently being close to the origins of the ethnicity in Ansongo—only 40km from the former seat of Koukia where the askias or kings resided during the Songhoy empire—I speak a pure koyraboro versus Bamba-borey speak a mix of Gao šenni and Timbutu ciini--note the difference even for the word for "language"). A man approached the butcher where I was buying meat for lunch and says Bonjour! so I reply to him in Songhoy. Eh! He goes. “You scared me! How does an anasara come to speak our language?” I told him how long I’ve been here and where I used to work. He says, “Now this is truly peace, thank you.” He appreciated that Peace Corps bothers to actually give us the tools to work with locals. The women selling spices and oil also enjoyed very much meeting me. Especially because when they asked, “Why, what will you be cooking?” And I replied that “Oh, you must be able to tell…look what I bought!” And she coyly goes “No, you tell me!” So I starting explaining the traditional fried-rice dish surruntu I’d be cooking. Laughs all around. The salt vendor asked the Oxfam guardian I was with (a local who watches our house for us in between missions) if he has himself a hondo yooizo or “a camel calf from the hills”—in Bamba ciini this is equivalent to “chick” or young lady. I think I made good first impressions particularly at the Radio Zan-Zan where I will be working.

Using the resources provided by GeekCorps and USAID, we’ll be producing a weekly show on good health and hygiene practices with the goal of helping families reduce the rates of malnutrition in village. I worked on improving the treatment of malnutrition in Ansongo and now I will focus on prevention. I have designed a T-shirt, written short radio messages to play daily along with a “grabber” which I may or may not be singing…and soon with the help of an artist troupe from Bourem we will launch the program with a grand soirée at the Mayor’s éstrade. The mayor himself is very content and laughed how I am indeed Peuhl with the name of Cissé but also because of my stature (tall and thin). Even another doctor on our team has taken to calling me Peuhlette. I am excited to work in Bamba—despite warnings from Ansongo folk that these are difficult people—and hope with village and household visits we will get a sense if people are listening and taking our advice. The Radio director believes if you can succeed in Bamba, you can succeed anywhere.

Milestones

I’ve survived precisely two years in Mali. I feel like I need to throw a little party for myself. But the day will be nothing more than church, laundry, animation typing, naptime, running, street food, and then bed. But I am incredibly excited to start at Oxfam tomorrow.

It is well with my soul. I am serving. I am learning. The food is fresh and without processing and packaging. I get to work with my hands. I am close to God and my beliefs are daily challenged. It is easier to become apathetic in the states I feel. Here everything and everyone is in your face. And now with certain perks like a computer, an ipod which I can actually keep charged on fairly reliable electricity, a fridge and a nice house in Gao where I am able to easily hang out with friends or other expats. I have a social scene, I have access to air conditioning!

And I am well-adjusted to my celebrity status. While out running a little kid started running along with me. I couldn’t help but smile. So I go Ir ma koy! Let's go! and started sprinting. He was pretty fast and laughing, so I let him enjoy himself then slowed back down to my jog. Joy.

Slavery?

I've spoken a lot about slavery and captives which exist in Malian society up to present day lately; mostly due to an article my brother sent me and therefore I was curious to hear what Malians think. A friend of mine is a Peuhl (Fulani) and therefore noble. There is work that noble Peuhls, to this day, simply refuse to do. He tried to explain it is a poor choice to call the class system of Mali an enforced slavery because 1) There is work certain ethnicity do and certain others don’t. It is a way of organizing society. The Bozos fish, the Peulhs herd, the Bamana farm, North Africans/Arabs are businessmen, the Songhoy cultivate rice and the Bellas are blacksmiths or are bound to noble (mostly Tamacheq) families. And 2) captives (in the sense their ancestors were taken as spoils of former tribal wars) are proud of their position in society. Particularly when you think of the alternative. If they were to leave their master—which they are free to do—they would not be fed, clothed, or housed. So really, he finds the "free" Bella squatters in their tent-huts in Gao sadder than captives. I'd agree--no latrines, no enclosures for animals, and a way of life that makes the koyraboro ("village people" or what the Songhoy call themselves) look down upon them. He does agree that it is a mindset which lingers and grandsons of captives still identify themselves as such—even this Peuhl says he has friends who say they are not as high status-wise as he is. Therefore that is why you see the marginalization of Bella. But it is they who keep themselves down, so says a friend of mine in Ansongo. Yet I still cringe when I hear hospital staff yell "Hey, you dirty Bella, come over here!" They tell me it is all in good fun. In Bamana society there is no noble-slave class distinction anymore because the slaves once overthrew the king in Segou. It was a captive who became friends with a son of the king and then other nobles and royal family members took notice and forbid the captive to play any longer with royals. So he left and amassed horses and troops and staged a coup. Bitter much? But it has relegated “slave” to only a joke in Bamana society. Whereas in the north it is true with certain people like captives and Bella you can’t really talk openly about it. It is certainly true the article my brother sent me was trying to play into Westerners comprehension of slavery—it’s not forced labor and the selling of persons as commodities like we had in America. It is a product of poverty and how society has been aligned. You would stay with a master too if life was better even as a captive.

Fear

The next person to tell me ganda si boori will convince me it is as Aliou said, "The great fear has installed itself." Kidal, precisely Abeïbara, was attacked with a force of 80 vehicles full of marginalized, gun-toting rebels. There were casualties on both sides and the rebels killed the Commandant. Then yesterday, rumors were spreading that Labbézanga, on the boarder would be attacked, so the government sent reinforcements (good thinking, after the Ansongo attack where there was ONE guardian in the gendarmerie courtyard). Everyone is saying this is an escalation. Us volunteers aren't panicking, but it is hard ignoring rumors. These people have seen and know war. 

The gandakoye rebel leader of the 1991-92 coup d'état has returned from Senegal. He sits and drinks his tea outside along the road near the phone-charging boutique here in Ansongo. And now as I am finally typing this entry, 3 months later, does the Malian media circulate the following article: 

Security: Northern Mali, another rebel front is being born

By Abdrahamane KEÏTA
While the open front led by Ibrahim Ag Bahanga begins the process of its disintegration, another hotbed of tension is trying to take over. It has to do with a rather faint copy of the "Gandakoye" Movement, as isolated veterans who have had difficulty in succeeding are drawing inspiration from the May 23 Alliance.

"Ganda Izo." This is what the former "Gandakoye" veteran, Cheybou Diallo, has named a new movement of ethnic revindication that nearly missed the 7th Region (Kidal). The diplomat, after a long stay in Dakar, has chosen to settle in "the City of Askias" (Gao) where his multiple offensives of charm directed toward the youth in Gao has only managed to stir up wind.

Mr. Diallo's plan, according to our sources, was first to recreate from its' ashes the mother movement, while attracting the sympathy of a youth lost through the shimmering favors comparable to those obtained by the May 23 Alliance. But after lengthy and unsuccessful attempts to bring people together around the same ideals, the prophet of violence retreated to the village of Fafa in the Ansongo Circle, not far from the Niger border, where he seems to have sufficiently labored for the needs of his cause.

According to our sources, Mr. Diallo finds himself finally at the head of a more or less formidable rebel battalion, composed mainly of young Fulani men from Mali and Niger. But unlike the former Gandakoye Movement, where he had once carved out a somewhat mixed reputation, the new front has nothing to envy to a rebel position. He openly chose to use the same methods that Ibrahim Ag Bahanga used to impose on the Malian government the same concessions made to the fighters from Kidal.

Our sources affirm that the former "Gandakoye" activist has already established cooperative ties with the Malian and Nigerian branches of the rebellion, which in turn, agreed to strengthen its capacity for creating a nuisance with an endowment of appropriate materials. To begin with, Ag Bahanga, add our sources, had already provided him with a satellite telephone (Thuraya) and three all-terrain vehicles.

The problem is that all these threats of destabilization and conflagration have free rein, with the knowledge and in view of everyone, without appropriate measures from the highest Malian authorities. Which obviously prefers to extinguish fires rather than stifle crises in their infancy.

If you give a jackal a baby goat's leg...

This is my teammate's attempt at translating "If you give a mouse a cookie..." into an understandable story for my dear koyraboro friends who know so well how to "eat." This is the slang in both French (bouffer) and in koyraboro to explain how people try to profit in community development projects, or skim off the top, or accept bribes. 

It bothers me even people with whom I've closely worked for the last year or more choose to sabotage my work with others because they don't directly profit. And all I am trying to do is appropriate resources according to those who actively approach me and to those who may not be active but whose need is readily apparent. One thing I've learned, okay like 377th thing I've learned while working in Ansongo, is that you can't trust anyone (always get a second or third opinion in regards to someone's character) and that negligence never solves anything. If you forget about it, no, it won't just go away. I know I am speaking in rather vague terms; my attempts to fairly divide USAID-donated sewing machines amongst townsfolk have been stressful. Two planned projects (those who originally requested the machines) essentially failed and now six months later I am trying to better the situation. I am sure of the causes of failure which at least will help me prevent a similar situation in the future. One group of women is beyond their "golden age" of association work and choose instead to play solely the role of mother; the other never got off the ground due to illnesses in the leadership and lack of time. People who are often more capable of project management are those who also seek to take on too many projects. Also, in the face of want, most people are desperate to profit. At least the angst and fire-fighting was worth it and in the end the machines were placed with two deserving groups: Yehiya Ag Mohammed representing the artisans and Aissata of the women's group "subaa naffa" (meaning Choosing to Benefit). 

Assoc+subaa+naffa2.jpg 

It was Aissata who said, upon receiving the machines for her group of youth, korombata toosi ga tonton bangu ra or "The peeing toad adds to the pond." This warmed my heart--that she was truly appreciative of even the little help I could provide.

Ouijila Recipe

In response to a posted comment...

The following is a traditional Northern dish, Ouijila, which I have learned to make alongside my good friend Zeinaba Adama. For those of you reading in country, I do take requests for Ouijila making kits complete with pounded spices and non-perishable ingredients. The recipe below, converted to Ameriki measures makes enough for a family-style meal for 6-8 people.
NB: It may take a few times to get the following in a good tastey balance because the conversions were made off of the typical market measures which change from vendor to vendor and are based on the monetary amount of the item you are purchasing. For example, you buy 100FCFA of "tawatl albashar" the date paste.

Ouijila dough:
10 cups wheat flour
4 T active dry yeast
1 T salt
4 cups water

Clean out a large basin or bowl. Mix water into 8 cups flour until the gluten forms. Mix in yeast. Add flour by the 1/2 cup-full if it is too sticky. Mix in salt. Kneed until when poked the dough returns to it's pre-poked form. Let dough rise for 1hr in the Malian heat, it may take longer in cooler temperatures. Wait until dough has doubled in quantity. Shape into small rounds. Lie out on counter-top or clean grass mat to rise again.

As the dough-balls are rising, begin the sauce:

2lbs beef (steak-cut style not ground) or mutton, cut into chunks
2 large onions, chopped
1/2 cup oil
1t cumin
1/2t black pepper
1/4t red pepper
2t ground cinnamon
1t gound sun-dried tomatoes (for those in Mali, make sure you dissolve dried tomato powder in water and strain, there is always grit in it)
1/4 cup tomato paste, dissolved in 1 cup water
4 T date paste dissolved in 1 cup water (or whole dates, pitted and mashed, diluted w/water)
2-3 bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 clump of "kabe" moss, pounded and rolled between palms to remove black underside (tree bark remnants)
1 cube maaji chicken flavor, 1 cube Jumbo (Elsewhere chicken boullion and MSG will do)
Salt to taste

Set a pot on the stove or cook-fire  full of water to boil for steaming. For the sauce, in a large cookpot, sautée meat with one of the chopped onions in the oil. When browned, add cumin, both peppers (increase red pepper if you like spicier foods), cinnamon, and sun-dried tomato powder. Sautée until aromatic. Add reconstituted tomato paste and date pastes. Bring sauce to a boil. If too thick add water a cup at a time. It should be a soup-like consistency. Add remaining ingredients. For those of you opposed to MSG, I'd just like to say, "Maaji et moi, le secret de bonheur!" Let the sauce simmer (add water if it is sticking) as you steam the dough.

At this point the dough balls should have doubled in size again unless you went to a boutiki that sold you old yeast. Prepare a double-boiler of sorts--with the pot of boliling water upon which you affixed a metal collander with strips of damp cloth to seal the two together. Or, you go to your local garasa/blacksmith in market and have him pound many holes in the bottom of a wok-style metal pan or furno top to serve as a collander. Or, if you are elsewhere and have access to Chinese-style bamboo steamers, use them. Basically the dough balls should be place in the collander in a dampened cloth or dampened rice sack and covered with the lid of the pot so the hot air doesn't escape. Steaming for each batch of 8-10 depending of the size of the steamer should take about 10 minutes. If you are cooking over a fire, watch you don't catch the steaming cloth on fire. It adds to the excitement but ruins a perfectly good rice sack :)

When the ouijila is steamed, serve 2-3 per person with the sauce for dipping. If you don't feel up to the whole steaming process, once the sauce is prepared, place balls of dough directly into the sauce pot until the sauce is covered with dough. Close the pot and simmer until dough is cooked through. This is known as toosa-toosa in the Gao region or toukas in Timbuktu. It is just as delicious and saves time. Enjoy!! A ma ni naffa!!