WE DID IT!!!!!!

a weekend´s surveyor training down the hatch.

awwwwwww yeah.

june winding down (towards the survey promised land)

Hello from bamako!

sorry for my delinquent blogging - things have been CRAZY! we've been coming into the office by 9:30 and not getting home till 11 pm or later -- it's been a stressful couple of weeks.

but never fear: i've made time when i wake up early in the mornings to reread the princess diaries, naked by david sedaris, and my mom's favorite Mary Stewart mystery, set in Avignon (it joins forces with a packed-by-mom hella daily course of Probiotics to make a lovely package of overseas-mom-care).

i wish i could post pdf files.

the baseline survey is complete.

IT IS SEXY.

i'm going to make an umbrella out of it, laminate that puppy and wave it through the streets of providence.

boxes. columns. positive and negative space. french in italics, bambara in bold. 18 pages plus 5 extra pages per household, containing the moustiquaires section (bugnets). you can pre-order your umbrella now if you want.

poor lassi. he's my partner in crime, a malian MHOP intern -- starting tomorrow at 9 am, we'll be co-leading 8 hours of training for 12 teams of health worker and surveyor for the pilot next week. lassi, a lanky and boy-ish law student, was sucked like an unsuspecting sparrow into a relentless Midwestern twister of anxious list-making. i put that boy through the ringer. (AND he thinks he's suffering the first twinges of malaria!!! i'm heartless!) i still feel like we're soaring by the seat of our pants, but lassi is suffering a slow death by bullet points - he's a sweet guy though, and we average out into a team to beat.

_

In other news:

1. the rainy season is starting. the sky opens up almost every day, with billowing clouds capturing the red cliffs in a black and white photograph.

2. there's a sea-monster in our nyegen (outdoor bathroom). a little background: the nyegen is oddly....NICE. under the stars....never a line...flushing irrelevant (it's way deep)...doubles as a drain for your refreshingly cool bucket bath. but last week, i heard the ocean in our nyegen. it's just a hole. there's no underground river. there are lots of cucarachas but they're not THAT big. only possibility: i found Nessie.

3. my dad has been helping us download an Ubuntu operating system onto the 10 laptops we brought through security -- our long skype dates, from bamako afternoon to early-morning DeJong living room with laptop, robe and coffee (i can picture it with great accuracy), have been a real treat. thanks pop.

_

4. i got schooled in the politics of the CHAG (community health action group), the spirited group of 12 elected to run the show, and almost all of whom are community health workers in our program. i didn't update soukeina before the meeting on the training stipend that each surveyor would be offered -- and i was completely caught off guard when she went to bat for the other sum we'd previously discussed, unleashing a FIRESTORM. owch. i just got an F in diplomacy.

leading the training tomorrow and the following week is incredibly daunting. but, we'll make it through. in a couple weeks, when things settle down, i hope to start spending more time with my host family -- we've been spending so much time at the office. not enough allotted to getting schooled by four-year-old Papa and his friends in soccer. also on the list: a picnic in the red rocks of sikoro. (it looks like Sedona, Arizona -- have you been there?)

_

miss you! all is well here -- what makes the work terrifying also makes it exciting, like we've pushed a boulder off the top of a hill and are chasing down after it. the thing to realize is -- in the end, boulders tend to get wherever they're going, irrespective of shepherding efforts.

below are some pictures from adama's last night before heading to six weeks in the states (lassi is second from the left), the family compound, and my room (messy so my suitemates know it's the real me)

thinking of you,

_

xxxx hawa

sorcery

hello again!

we had a lovely day today at Adama's house -- after a torrential rain, we walked with his friends through groves of mango trees and a rushing chocolate-colored stream behind their neighborhood. they showed us the street corner where they've talked into the night and sipped tea every evening since they can remember. back at the compound (which is lovely, old stone in pastel colors -- Adama's dad was a well-known filmmaker, and his mom is a coordinator for the SIT study abroad program), we discussed 24 (when does Jack Bauer pee? when off-screen he is always driving), and sorcery. poor guys -- when we assured them that wives eat their unfaithful husbands in the states, they were REALLY freaked out. there are good and bad sorcerers, not so much in Bamako, but certainly in surrounding villages -- you don't know they're eating you until they've eaten your head, at which point you check out for good. adama was really serious -- one of his cousins had baby twins who were visited by a bad sorcerer, and one was "eaten" and died suddenly. at the end of the evening, we met a friend who goes by "le dinosaur sentimental" (strong yet emotional like the mighty t-rex). we ran out of time to watch pirated nigerian dvds ("best world movies 88 on one dvd" including "The Holiday: 1 through 5" and the alluring yet family-friendly "Jennifer Lopez vs. Kate Winslet")

i got to talk to so many people today. Djallo, a man who works from 6 AM to midnight at an egg sandwich stand; groups of old men on my way to buy bananas in the market this morning; the sentimental dinosaur; many, many kids and mothers in front of their houses on the way to the office. it was lovely. current daily banana record: 4 (anticipating one when I get home tonight)

the economics of sikoro are cloudy: in the market, many women sell identical arrays of mangos from sunrise to midnight: tomatoes, bananas, dried-old-man-fish, all in small piles by price. it seems like magic: a trading circle of malian francs for mangos (they're in season) that leaves everyone better off, that lets so many women make a living. many men that aren't vendors in the Sikoroni market commute to the Grand Marche in packed green buses. one lady's in the Sikoroni market's competitive edge: alongside a pile of ripe mangos, a teetering tower of amoxicillin. get it while it's hot.

some more pictures of sikoro -- it's very beautiful, a rural-feeling slum in a capital of a million people, nestled among red rocks with vibrantly green trees after the rain. its rural feeling is deceptive, as it's actually one of the densest of Bamako's neighborhoods -- upwards of 30 people often live in one compound.

don't forget to write! i'll bring you back a 2-day-old baby goat. xxx Hawa

p.s. note to self: check if folks were pulling our leg re. goat head soup. ingredients: water. goat head. tomatos. onions. stir. chop into chunks. enjoy.

sunday morning

hey all!

lazy sunday morning -- poor caitlin is sick, so we brought her a Djalo (pinapple soda) and are going to spend a couple hours under the office fan before heading out to explore a movie or the artisan's market.

the pictures below are a few from one walk into work in the morning -- I'll post some more here. the morning walk is one of the loveliest parts of my day: everyone seems so happy to see us. i walked in with Soukeina the other day, and it took over an hour (she has cousins like woah).

highlight reel of the past few days:

1. i found a (i'm going to hold off on "the") love of my life: my bugnet has just enough room for me to pull in my fan with me, and my fan and i spoon, cuddle and whisper sweet nothings all night long. blissful.

haha we unfortunately have a third wheel: hereafter named charlie, a massive, fat lizard that chills out on my bugnet a couple inches above my nose, so his underbelly can share the fan's breeze. he's completely unbothered by pokes and flicks -- last night i scooped him out my window. now i kinda hope he finds his way back to me.

2. broadway cafe: an expat zone, but in a nice way. last night was the goodbye dinner for paul and nora, two wonderful north carolina-ans who are heading back to UNC psychology and Duke med, respectively. also: BABY ZONE! 3 of 4 women at the table -- who worked for save the children and oxfam -- had become pregnant in mali. i'm considering it, mom.

3. soukeina's cousin took me for an afternoon at her home on the other side of the river. i wasn't sure what to expect -- when I got back at about 7 pm, caitlin asked, "did you eat a massive malian lunch and then all pass out on the couches?" YES! exactly. in front of "extreme makeover home edition" and "love island" dubbed into french. for like 5 hours. it was actually super restful. we took a break for a meal of rice with a palm oil tomato chicken sauce -- it was delicious. pickles, too.

they are a very well-off family -- it was interesting to see such a different side of bamako, about 25 minutes away across the river. her husband is a government official who studied for 10 years in Russia (like many other well-off Malians 20 or 30 years ago). many malian families have "bonnes," young girls who live with the family and cook, clean, take care of the baby; this family's two "bonnes" were really lady-in-waiting-esque.

i was taken aback when Soukeina saw the guy who plays David Palmer on 24 ("that's Allstate's stand"). "Ca, c'est Will Smith."
"huh! i guess i could kinda see that but i think it's this other guy..."
"ah! c'est Eddie Murphy! oui, c'est ca."
it's funny that Soukeina's interest in the names of black American actors would result in the same mix-up that you'd expect more from a confederate great-great aunt.

now we're off to visit Adama -- an intern who's headed to Ohio University for six weeks next saturday. this week will be DAUNTING but could be really productive -- finishing our baseline survey, translating into bambara, writing up a contract with the clinic and selecting our list of essential medicines to give "prise en charge" to participating families. also downloading Ubuntu onto the 10 laptops we took through JFK security (thanks for the tech help, pop)

thinking of you in sikoro!

goat!

a ni tile! 104 degrees in bamako, mali.

1. i have a new phrase: "where do you sleep at night?" it's a fun one. "hello little boy on the street! me hawa! where do you sleep at night? i'm going to the office. i sleep in america. where do you sleep?"

2. exploring new parts of bamako! this past monday night: malian chinese food with anna, caitlin, and george the romanian dentist. on the to-do-list: hole in the wall diner with the best north malian stew you can get (goat and cinnamon plus 20 other spices); visit to the No Stress nightclub for a little Bobaraba (malian booty-shake dance)

3. place your Fetish orders now -- carcasses? "old man" dried fish? all available in the Grand Marche of Bamako. on the bus Caitlin told a story of the time she got shipwrecked in a freighter on the way to timbuktu and spent three days with a group of desert nomads. she also told us about her internship with PTSD victims in Rwanda, which was so challenging that she needed to take off for a week-long getaway in Uganda.

4. ok. i've been incredibly happy, and pretty miserable at various points in the last couple days. work-wise.
incredible happiness: meeting with Soukeina in her home -- we get on like a house on fire. she knows so much that i never, ever could, and is sassy and opinionated in the best way. how can we find out if a mom's bugnet was pre- treated? ask her if she bought it in a sachet or in the marche! her compound is hectic and wonderful -- there are always 7 aunts and 5 babies and 2 ancient grandmothers and sister Assatou who just arrived after a 15-hour bus ride from the north, who share in greetings and tea and the work as well -- Soukeina asks their opinion in rapid-fire bambara.

frazzled frustration: yesterday sucked. in a meeting with an awesome eval expert from Duke, i found out that the survey drafts i sent out before the trip were hella unguided. three days of work back in illinois that really could have been redirected in five seconds. dangit. then we outlined everything that needed to happen after the two directors' unexpected departure -- trainings, design, consultations, evaluation, implimentation, publishing, accountability, sustainability. wait, who's supposed to do this again? wait WHAT??? then walking home that night some dude swerved to faux-run me over with his motorcycle.

BUT. refreshment came soon -- in a cool breeze on the late night walk, a lovely talk with Anna, and the friendliness of the many people still out on the street -- even after I asked them where they sleep at night.

followed by a heartening morning. soukeina said she actually preferred the newer survey draft -- quite possibly out of pity but... cool done i'll take it! so now it's a matter of reworking what i've got, translating it and other documents into bambara, setting up surveyor training and piloting and getting things rocking and rolling, while setting up our Action Fee system with the CHAG. the ever-impressive caitlin and i set out some timelines for my work this summer.

i had a great skype chat with Pop -- and i'm now feeling comfortable approaching some terrifying corvette-esque timelines as a happy ol' chuggin' rusty tractor. a lot more responsibility than i was anticipating given the last-minute loss of both directors. but like spinach, responsibility is good for you.

5. having reached this philosophical peace, when the electricity in the office died (no fan) we abandoned work for the pool. (hard knock life.) adama, a rockin' malian intern, came with us, and we coached him on his upcoming trip to America on a pre- Fulbright scholarship (ben & jerry's, hot showers, deep-dish pizza and buttery movie popcorn). our last stop was Fast Food Adonis for the best falafel sandwiches in Mali.

which leaves me here in our internet cafe -- sleepy and sunburnt and chloriney- crusty in that lovely post pool way.

tomorrow, i'm hoping Fanta will teach me to make To, one of my host sisters -- an intriguing staple that looks kinda like cement, and is liked only by mama Hawa and baby Nana in our entire compound (but they have some say). i'll head over to Soukeina's at noon to have lunch with her family -- a big feast in honor of the 7th day after her mother's passing. it should be really wonderful -- her family is endlessly warm and welcoming. on the 40th day we'll sacrifice a goat.

much love from sikoro. i'm stoked to be here.

action for health

Action for health. A community offers high-impact health care in the home, and it asks a commitment of moms to give back in a way that’s affordable: by donating time or food to a malnutrition support group, by helping to build the new community clinic, by enrolling a daughter in a community literacy program.
fresh off the royal air moroc 747, i started scrawling lists of ideas to design a mechanism -- systems of monitoring and tickets and possible actions. but. this ain't right. i started to feel disgusting-- it's actually pretty horrific.
a perverted power trip: bearers of donor-funded medicines brainstorming non-monetary hoops to be jumped through “because it’s good for people.”
How can such a small difference – whether it’s me or Soukheina at the blackboard writing up action fees, not just writing them but cooking 'em up -- determine whether a program is the community’s own mechanism to empower itself – or know-it-all foreigners pushing a program that attaches strings to health?
After talking to Caitlin and others, and relaxing into life in Sikoro, i can start to feel more humble and less creepy. The past couple days, I’ve approached this huge blank page as a mechanism that needs to be designed. that route is misplaced -- and, i'm seeing, it's not MHOP. Soukheina and the CHAG are powerful, opinionated, driven and definitely don’t take any sass. The ideas will come from them – and as long as they do, it’s their ship. I was confused that there could be such a hairline divide between such slap-in-the-face patronization, and a mutual commitment between a community and it’s families. But it’s not a hairline divide. It’s the grand canyon. I feel so relieved to have this more clear – dodging a bullet by realizing how tiny my role has to, and will, be.

aw ni su

hello from sikoro!

wow, today i discovered a new joy! the walk from home to the MHOP office -- about 10 minutes usually -- took almost an hour, because I made hella usage of my 10-15 bambara words.

good early afternoon! my name is hawa gaku! hawa gaku. how are you? and your family? and your mother? and your father? and your cousin? yes, my name is hawa. hawa gaku! and your family, they are good? and your brother? and your cousin. nse. nse.


(my poor host family gets this kinda thing a LOT)

sikoro is a crazy mix of rural and capital city -- it's hard to describe. 60,000 people live here (over a million in Bamako in total), but there are pigs and cows and goats and people riding donkeys, most roads are dusty and unpaved, and the small market at the bottom of our hill is wooden stalls -- selling tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, BEAUTIFUL okra, and small shriveled entire fish, in the circle they curled into upon death, affectionately called "little old men" in bambara.

so many people are out -- eating meals, talking, selling things, men playing cards and groups of teenage boys looking cool -- and absolutely to a person, they smile and laugh warmly when I bug them about their cousins. it's really a joy -- they get a COMPLETE kick out of this not-too-bright-but-quite-well-meaning-and-unabashedly-dorky Toubab (white person). i'm probably actually saying something like, "good mama mama? cousins yes? good daytime? hawa! hawa gaku! me gaku! brother? whole family? mother?" the thing is, everyone is friendly. people don't smile if you just pass them -- which makes it all the more striking when an "aw ni wula" (good early afternoon) never fails to make them laughingly gather 'round friends and ask you about YOUR cousins...

how about work? work is incredibly scary. but exciting. the two people directing my project (a new community health worker initiative in Sikoro, with participating families paying "action fees" instead of money) both had to leave unexpectedly at the same time -- things are pretty up in the air. the very wonderful Posie (yeah Brown Frisbee) did a lot to prepare things before she left, but she didn't know that the Malian director of the project -- Dr. Marietta -- would be leaving right after to take another job. there are a million things on MHOP's plate -- there's a new battle over land rights at the site of the new clinic (the eighth time this has come up). manipulative and unelected Madame la Maire (Mrs. Mayor) recruited a youth group under the table to smash the clinic's bricks -- claiming that the clinic would displace a football field -- to try to re-sell the land. an old rivalry between the neighborhoods of Sikoro and Sarakabougu complicates things further.


with all this happening, the CHW project has been entrusted to me and and my newly hired Malian partner in crime -- a nurse named Soukheina. we want to get things kicking as soon as possible, and keep all of Posie and Marietta's work from being lost. to-do includes finishing and piloting a baseline survey, getting the villainous Mrs. Mayor's permission, completing the health workers' health education folders, and, most of all, designing and organizing an Action Fee system that's acceptable to the CHAG (community health action group). Posie and Marietta did HUGE amounts of work on the medical side, fully training all the health workers -- but the Action Fee system and organization is a blank slate. Tomorrow we meet with the CHAG (community health action group), and this is one of the items on the agenda-- what actions will earn "tickets," and how will they be collected? the top-achieving moms will hopefully be brought onto MHOP's radio station. soukheina is great, and we have some incredibly exciting ideas on the table. mothers and fathers could trade such actions for health as signing petitions, participating in community cleanup days, enrolling girls in MHOP's fledgling education program (which I'm going to help out with -- a rockstar intern from Sikoro named Adama is in charge), donating food or clothes to the clinic maternity ward, and possibly joining a "malnutrition support group" at the clinic, where moms could bring babies every morning for high-impact foods like fortified peanut butter.

Soukheina's mom passed away this morning. Adama offered to bring me to the funeral -- so, reaching new heights of ridiculous Toubabity, I sprinted home to borrow one of Caitlin's traditional Malian two-piece formal outfits, which I donned backwards and inside out and hitched up a little to run to meet Adama at Soukheina's. "Que son corps soie legere" -- may her body be light. I sat in the women's half of the compound with Soukheina and her lovely sister - I felt badly for making them fuss over me (bringing me in the shade, keeping me at their side, kindly helping me switch around my backwards/inside out shirt). we sat in silence for several hours. some spoke or sang; people ate communally from silver bowls of rice and sauce. I may have overstayed my time -- Adama left after just a half hour or so, but I was there for about three and a half -- and many women were still there after I left.

after leaving the funeral, returning home and then to the office began about an hour and a half of "aw ni sogoma" Xtreme -- stopping at every big group of people to make a lovely party out of "me hawa gaku! your mother? your cousin?" people are really curious, and also caring and even protective at the funeral (Soukheina and her sister kinda shuttled me around with them).

this was a long one! back to top ten lists in the future, i promise. much love always. i'm thinking of you.


p.s. i'll save my Hammam description for next time...enchanting ecstasy and what caitlin describes as "having a matronly Moroccan woman scrub off your epidermis" while lathered in black olive oil-based soap. haha also the man who was supposed to take us to the hotel to grab our luggage after a day in casablanca played a BIZARRO joke -- refusing to let us on the van for a full 20 minutes, in frightening "CEST INTERDIT!" fashion, despite our pleas that we'd miss our flight -- only to break out laughing and invite us to hop on when one of our number finally used the French for go f* yourself. the other traveler, a Moroccan, thought this was HILARIOUS and they became instant buddies. WEIRD! but also hilarious. the same driver brought us back to the airport later that night -- it was awkward.

in sikoro!

HELLO!! thanks to all for the kind zords! oops i write zords because a z is where w should be - among other swaps in the internet cafe keyboard. haha im typing this reeeeeeally slowly. check this out: èçc€ù cool huh.

WERE HERE!! i could zrite oops write forever about day in morocco and day 1 in mali but lemme try a quick highlight reel. till i learn hoz to type.

HIGHLIGHT REEL

1. 16 laptops in through jfk security and carried on awwww yeah. 16 tubs on the conveyor belt plus one for my chacos and 7 cents. lady in line behind us, i know that somehow you are reading this and i want to say: thank you.

2. internet cafe in morocco to look up a phone number after visiting maybe the largest mosque in the world (built only 15 years ago with an grandeur i thought was history). while caitlin was looking stuff up i talked zith the owner. he does sociological research on la normalite as a hobby - and keeps up faceboook discourse with a friend who does the same - and also writes poetry on the same word document but not for normality just pour les femmes (women)

3 HAMMAM! shoot out of time but i will give this the great attention its due asap - a moroccan bath but also pure bliss

more details as soon as i can about casa and arriving in sikoro - i have a name! same as my host mother: hawa gaku. she is an adviser for newlyweds - she enters the bridal tent and is kind of a coach for the consummation for a week after marriage. as hawa 2 i hope she can tell me some secrets (just kidding mom! and grandma) love to all xxx