African boites are intimidating!!!

Hello everyone!

A lot has been going on since the last time I updated so bare with me as I try to relay a lot of information in an easy and concise manner.

What I have been up to:

On Tuesday, my class went to a women’s prison. The image of this place is forever ingrained in my mind. To quote my post-visit journal entry, “It smelled like human shit, everywhere.” They live dormitory style, with too many women cramped in each room. There are no cells at all but instead they live in a large compound with almost everything outdoors. They are free to walk around inside the small, gated compound which is where we entered and walked through… right next to all of them. Not only were the living conditions less than excusable, but the women looked somewhat sickish. Most of them seemed to have some sort of skin illness or disfigurement. There were also very stark differences between their prison and a typical women’s prison in the United States. For instance, there were tons of children inside the prison. For some reason, women who are incarcerated are still able to keep their children with them up to a certain age. The rules of the prison are overall much more relaxed… the women are able to use knitting needles, razors, and even hot coals to cook with. This seemed rather strange to me considering that when the warden was asked what crimes placed these women in prison, the top 2 answers were manslaughter and infanticide (the murdering of children). It seems to me, although I am not educated on the subject, that the top 2 things I would keep out of this, or really any, prison are weapons and children… but I guess they feel it works for them. I could go into so much more detail but it isn’t particularly pleasant. To end this paragraph on a conclusive note, the Bamako prison was NOT similar to the Bridget Jones’ Diary 2: The Edge of Reason Thailand prison scene I originally had painted in my mind… Hollywood, your reenactment of a female third world prison was inaccurate, and because of you, I was ill-prepared.

On Wednesday, a couple girls from my class and I went down to the Niger River to ‘observe’ it. Our driver, Kara, dropped us off somewhere strange but eventually we made it to an opening in the river. There was a slum-like neighborhood we had to walk through to actually get to the river in the area we picked to observe and the contrast between where we live with our home stay families and this neighborhood was really extreme. We had to walk through a large field of muddy sewage to even enter the village area, and then walk through the village to actually get near the water. ‘Observing’ their way of life was personally difficult for all of us to take in. Most of the kids had potbelly or malnourished stomachs. Unlike most third world countries, Malian children get enough of a calorie intake but they are still malnourished because what they eat doesn’t actually provide their bodies any vitamins or health benefits. So, typically, their bellies stick out really far, looking very bloated, and the child tends to look very ill. It’s emotionally hard and draining to walk through this area and see swarms of sick kids with crusty snot running down their noses and smelling of human feces. It’s even harder trying to make the choice of whether or not you should let them touch you… they want to shake your hand and follow you around but at what point do you say enough is enough? We have no idea where their hands have been and literally have no way to properly disinfect. It sounds heartless but it is a legitimate concern my group had a hard time discussing.
Although the water is an excellent resource and in some respects they are very lucky to have it, in other ways it is a terrible curse. It’s disgustingly dirty, the entire cities waste just sits in it and it breeds disease and parasites. Everyone in the village drinks it, cooks with it, and washes everything in it, including themselves. The number one thing the SIT program tells you after “don’t eat the street food,” is DO NOT touch water from the Niger River. And if you do, you must immediately wash yourself off and disinfect as best as you can. So to think an entire group of people, and I am sure there are also others, live life with the river for companionship seems devastating to my Western eyes.
I have personally started to really struggle with these kinds of observations. I walk around and wonder… if they don’t know of anything different, do they understand the kind of poverty they live in? It’s crazy to think anyone would think a life like this is normal, even the living conditions of my wealthy Malian family, but the reality is, I am the out of touch person… a majority of the world lives in similar situations like this and we truly are the freaks for the way we live. It was a really hard experience to observe. Also, like most situations we find ourselves in, it’s awkward to just walk in on someone’s life and ‘observe it’. Who are we to invade their space and make them feel like what they do, which is completely normal, is something so strange to us that we want to study it? A majority of the time a lot of us feel like we are trampling through their lives carelessly making silly judgments on how ‘different’ they are. Having a group of young white girls walking through your village and shaking your hand is very weird—to put it bluntly. Try envisioning the situation vise-a-versa… Once you really start thinking about it, it’s rather strange.

On Thursday, we did the coolest thing yet… we went to the US Embassy! We had a presentation by the ‘spokesman’, aka total badass, for the USAID (which is the US Agency for International Development). To rewind a bit, let’s first talk about the US Embassy… Hello America! The next time you go anywhere in the United States, notice the track lighting, ceiling, smooth walls, crown molding, sleekly sealed windows, window panes, huge and heavy sleek metal doors, pretty much everything… because it’s uniquely Western. Our embassy is a ‘if you even glance at our building incorrectly, we are going to kick your ass in a way you’ve never even thought of’ kind of building. Just being in it made all of us a little homesick but luckily, our lecture on Malian development quickly reminded us why we are here and we soaked up the buildings air-conditioning with appreciation instead of longing.
Our lecturer talked with us about the four main areas the USAID works to improve development in Mali, which includes health, economic growth, governance and communication, and education. Although I won’t bore you with what we learned, it was wonderful to hear him speak. With his lobbyist persona, he embodied the ability to take anything negative and turn it into a positive. Just seeing someone with that kind of speaking ability is inspirational and to know that my class was able to have a discussion with someone that high ranking in such a huge organization is incredible.

Friday and Saturday were socially fun for me but definitely not blog worthy so I will move forward with Sunday. On Sunday, the big post-Ramadan ‘fete’ (or party) began. To preface it a little bit, we were told that because Muslims (which is basically the entire country) have been fasting for over a month to observe Ramadan, they throw a HUGE party to celebrate its ending on the Sunday it is over. But, cultural differences don’t lie… our definition and their definition of partying our two very different things. People here spend about a week getting ready to celebrate the end of Ramadan. It’s basically like preparing for Prom. They do their hair, paint their nails, get all new clothes, and fight with their significant others about their plans for the day. Problem is, when the ‘big day’ arrived I was expecting a “PAR-TAY!!!” and I got (include a small, sad sigh) “party”. My day went like this… I woke up, showered and was then greeted by the preparation of lunch. As I sat, watching them dissect what they kept referring to as just ‘viande’ (or meat), I grew continually more and more suspicious. With help from my trusty French/English dictionary I was able to creatively and tactfully ask about what exactly we were about to eat. By the time lunch came around and I had a piece of my mystery meat in my mouth, I put two and two together… I was eating the ‘best’ parts of the cow, or less formally known as the parts that no one in the Western world wants to eat. As I chomped on cow stomach, arteries, and tongue, I more figuratively ate my own words of “I eat and like everything, I am not a picky eatter”, and digested the fact that the previous statement is now a lie.
`After lunch, I put on my new traditional Malian clothes (yes, I took pictures) and walked with my friends from house to house meeting up with other classmates and seeing all of their new clothes. Needless to say, we looked strange. It’s one thing to walk around and be glowingly white but retain your ‘normal’ and expected Western garb… it’s completely different to walk around glowingly white in traditional Malian clothes. People thought we were literally crazy. After this spectacle, I returned home to observe the next big part of the holiday… begging and praying children. Adults sit in their courtyards with their front doors open and wait for children, dressed in their best clothes, to walk in and rattle off an entire list of prayers or wishes for their New Year in exchange for a few coins. To give everyone a western point of reference… it’s basically the combination of dressing and preparing for Easter and walking around from door-to-door like Halloween (but instead of candy, they get coins).
That evening, my sister invited me out to see a movie with her and her friends. I enjoyed Terminator 3, dubbed in French and then we went to the ‘boite’ (or club). Although I have about an hour’s worth of information to share about the boite, I will simply say this… I am not easily intimidated but dancing in an African night club lowered my ‘dancing self-esteem’ to nonexistent and tonight (Monday 9.21) when I go out, I am going with my fellow, terrible dancing, classmates.

A random Malian thought:

They wear Western t-shirts here—bargain basement, Salvation Army reject t-shirts. This, overall, is a great idea… it’s recycling at its finest and it’s nice to know the “Support our Public School” t-shirt you got in 95’ isn’t in some landfill but instead continuing to do its job by clothing and making a statement. It is however odd to see an impoverished man standing on the corner begging for change in a t-shirt that says “Support our Public Schools”. It’s wrong and strange on so many levels… even if he could read, the likelihood that he would read English is nonexistent. The irony of the meaning behind the shirt and the language it is written in paired against their educational system and basic lack of fundamental infrastructure is a prime example of globalization… its definitional perfection kills me. The strange thing is, this is not an isolated example or the exception to some rule… it is the cultural norm. Everywhere we walk, a majority of people are wearing graphic t-shirts with absolutely absurd things written on them. Although I see the extremely sad aspect to the t-shirt situation, I can’t help but laugh when I see a 50 year old man wearing a Pokemon t-shirt or a baby in a Lakers jersey… they don’t have anime cartoons OR basketball here.

Random personal thoughts:

I still love it here but homesickness has definitely started to settle in. It’s starting to effect almost everyone in my group in one way or another. It’s not terrible or anything traumatic; it’s just that over time things add up. To give a short, shout-out style list of things I am missing: mac’n’cheese and broccoli shells, chips and salsa, chapter, peebs, sushi, American TV shows, mindprobs, waffle house, pictures with ‘heads together’, bill, pad thai, singing in the car, green bean casserole, and anything that reminds me of my family (in multiple senses of the word). The updates are beyond awesome, I will never be able to explain how they impact my day and… if this little adventure of mine has shown me anything, it’s that I am truly beyond blessed with the friends and family in which I am surrounded. It’s cheesy, I know, but it just had to be said.

I will try and write again soon so that I can write without the stress of trying to include an entire week’s worth of information into one entry. I am sending my love from half-way around the world… I hope you can all feel it!

Love. Sarah