21 March 2009

This is one of the weeks that I expected when nothing out of the ordinary happened. I was up early one morning and looked down at the street. A grandfather was carrying to buckets to the river for water. His grandson was running from behind to catch him and carry one of the buckets. Then they continued on. A donkey cart came down the street very quietly behind them. Early morning is about the only time that you can experience peace and quiet around here. People spend most of their day outside where it is cooler and their conversations are generally much louder than you would hear in the States.

Now a little recent history of Mali. In 1960 the Sudanese Republic gained it's independence from France. It joined with the Republic of Senegal to form the Mali Federation. Then Senegal seceded and Mali changed it's name to the Republic of Mali. The Army overthrew the government in 1968 and Mali was under military rule for 20 years. In 1991 dictator Moussa Faso was overthrown and Mali made a peaceful transition to democracy. There have been some rebellions along the northern border of Mali by some of the Tuareg tribes but most of Mali has been peaceful over the last 20 years. The economy has been steadily improving over that time. There is still a fairly large number of unemployed so I see more manual labor and less machine labor than I would see in the States.

I have commented on the traffic before and I may be repeating myself. Most of the vehicles on the road are motorbikes. They fit snugly in front , behind , and on both sides of any cars on the road. There are a few personal cars , a lot of taxis , and a lot of green machines (vans used as buses or for general hauling). Add to the above a fair number of bicycles , push carts , donkey carts and an odd horse or camel rider along with numerous pedestrians and you have an intriguing traffic problem. Anyone who drives must be expecting someone to do something unexpected at any time. Somehow it all works out.

We packed up our vehicles and headed out of Bamako. This was my first trip outside of Bamako since I flew in the first week of January. In the first picture we have the Africa Tower which is in a traffic circle near the airport. It has an outline of Africa at it's top. They tell me it has a pictoral tour of Africa that you can see as you climb up the interior of the tower. The next picture is from the village of Mana. The houses are built of mud bricks with thatched roofs.

I took two pictures of a mud wall that was put up around 300 years ago as a protection from slaver raiding parties. You can see that it has stood up well through the years. I have another picture of the village of Mana with some bushy trees in the foreground. These are Mango trees and they are covered with fruit. The big tree with the kids scattered in front of it? Well I don't know what kind it is so we will just call it Big Tree! The roots cover the ground all around it.

We stayed at a missionary compound at Mana where they teach pastors and their wives Bible stories and how to use them in witnessing. There is also a medical clinc at Mana which is sponsored by the church there.

Our retreat was sort of an extended field trip where the kids got to review their Mathematics, Biology and Earth Science materials and a spiritual retreat as we also had some Bible study. I came back pretty well tired out but I think that it was time well spent.

March7 Mali

These are pictures that someone else took in Mali and has shared with me. The young lady is cooking n'sema which I saw a lot of and ate a lot of in Malawi and in Zambia. I have not seen any here in Bamako. It may be more common in the villages. All the other pictures are of the area in and around Timbuctu. I would have liked to go there just to say that I had done it but It is about a thousand mile trek from Bamako. I could fly if I wasn't so cheap. Oh yes. Timbuctu is up closer to the Sahara so the climate is more arid. There used to be a river running through Timbuctu but it shifted so only the river sand remains. Timbuctu was an important center of learning and trade back in the 14th century. Morocco captured that territory in the late 16th century and held it until France took over in the early 1900's. Malian history fills in blank spaces for me when I have nothing new to report. Next week I will report on the retreat that we will have at Mana.

Orphanage

I am only including one picture in today's blog. If you click on it and enlarge it you will see the young lady in the center. She has been grinding grain and in the picture you can see her pouring it slowly from one basket to the other to allow the chaff to blow away.

Our school is trying to interest the students in some community projects. This week we took some of them to an orphanage in Bamako. There were about a dozen of us that went. Two teachers and about ten students. The orphanage has about 80 babies (birth to 2) and a few older children that are crippled. Most of the adoptions go to France.

I enjoyed holding the youngest babies (surprise). Even though I don't speak French I was able to make friends with the nurse in the room that I was in. They have about ten babies in each room. I sang a couple of my lullabies and then the nurse sang one of hers. She has a much livelier lullaby than I do. Then she told one of the babies a story with motions and facial expressions. It was a very nice story even though I did not understand a word of it. I think that it was about the little baby girl growing up and marrying a wise chief. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Evidently the little boy that I picked up first enjoyed himself also. He certainly did not want to be put back down.

I did not change any diapers as they were using swaddling clothes and wrapped and tied them on. I still remember cloth diapers but we used to fold second base over home plate and pin them on.

A walk to the store.

You can see some of the traffic on the street just beyond the 'short haul' men. In the States you can get two men and a truck. Here you can get one man and his cart. They haul some hefty loads on those little carts. We also got a picture of a donkey cart on the same trip. It isn't loaded though. The other pictures is of two ladies heading for the river to do their laundry.

I think that I mentioned the science project of a solar cooker. We didn't have to good luck with our test. The food wasn't cooked at 3:00 when school let out. It was completely dehydrated the next morning. The plastic cover had also ripped and the class did not seem to interested in continuing so we stopped the project with very limited success. You can't win them all. One of the boys took the cooker home with him and he might continue working on it.

We had clouds and even a few drops of rain this week. The rainy season is not supposed to start until April.

Happy Valentines Day

We don't have any pictures for you this week. I will try to get my camera out for pictures of some of the local color next week.

For those of you who are waiting with baited breath on the results of our 5-6th grade Solar Cooker science project. The construction was completed on Wednesday , however the Chinese president visited Mali on Thursday which resulted in some of the roads being closed so our school was closed also. On Friday we performed tests on the cooker. We warmed water up to to about 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Our rock (heat sink) was almost to 180 degrees. Since school lets out by 2:30PM we had some of the hottest part of the day left to go. Those temperatures would be enough to cook with. Next week we will try to cook rice in it.

I was asked by one reader what SIL stood for. I don't speak French and those letters stand for a French name. It is the name of the organization that does the Wycliffe Bible translation work in Mali and Ivory Coast. There are now a Bible in the Bambara language and New Testaments in Bomu , Khassonke ,Dogon , Tamasheq , Fulfulde ,and Minyanka. They also work with various Christian groups in generating Bible story sequences , Audios , and Videos.

I am being taught the Bambara greeting although I doubt that I will learn it in the short time that I have left here. I will try to go through that greeting now. This has to be done before any business is transacted.

eenee sogoma (hello)
eenee sogoma (hello right back at you)
somogo kawkenee (is the family well?)
toro tay (very well thank you)
eemoso kawkenee ( is your wife well)
toro tay
demee semu kawkenee (Are your children well)
toro tay
oobay kawkenee (how is everyone)
toro tay

This is then reversed and the second person asks the questions and the first one answers.

there can also be a blessing given which will contain "Allah" in it. If you hear that the response is "ameena".

kawumbay means goodbye or be seeing you.
Congratulations. You now know Bambara better than I do.
As you can see; social amenities mean a lot to the people of Mali. They joke a lot with each other which releases a lot of tension and seems to make them a relaxed and friendly people.

Since I let you see me at play last weekend I thought that I would balance everything out and show you my workplace. The first picture is our school lunchroom. Naturally we eat in the open air since the weather is always warm. The kindergarten teacher in the next picture doubles as one of my chauffeurs.
Next is our up to date science lab In which you can find anything you don't need and then our combination library and computer lab.
My room is next with chairs still on top of the desk so the room can be cleaned. Then two pictures of me pretending to teach a Geometry class. Actually they were taking a test which I am still in the process of grading.
A picture of the 6th - 12th graders in chapel and then we see a couple of pictures of kids and teacher with smiles on their faces since they have survived another week and this is Friday afternoon.

Our 5th-6th grade science class is in the process of building a solar oven (solar cooker). Our challenge is to build one that will cook a pot of rice. I hope that we succeed. We may not teach anyone anything but we are going to keep trying. Well that is my work in Mali. The kids are kids like anywhere else but I think they are pretty nice.