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.