This One Looked Funny Without a Title, So Now It Has One
Hmmmmm, where to start. First off I’ll announce that I will no longer be making references to how long it’s been since adding to this blog (starting now). I’ve just been jinxing myself. The reality of it is that I’ve never been very good at keeping in touch with people- the major goal of doing this at all- and I’ve never found it that easy to sit down and write about myself- a major subject of the blog, of course. Add to that the total ambiguity that is this adventure we call Peace Corps (and the fact that I’ve accomplished, ummm, let’s see… nothing!) and voila, you get my total lack of motivation for writing here lately.
But I suppose some of that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I have been working pretty hard on the 1st 2 goals of PC (yeah for cultural exchange!). You see, the first and second of the PC’s 3 goals are a better understanding of Americans by foreigners and a better understanding of foreigners by Americans, respectively. So by just hanging out with Malians and talking about, well, just about anything, I’m actually accomplishing something. And by telling you all about it (whether now or later) I am at least attempting to fulfil part of my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer… This isn’t just a 2 year vacation, I swear! :)
Speaking of the 3 goals of PC, you might be asking, “What’s the 3rd?” (or maybe even, “What exactly are my taxes paying for?”- but we’ll get back to that in a second… sort of). The 3rd goal reads something like, “to help meet the country’s need for trained men and women.” This implies some sort of transfer of knowledge, or “capacity building”. Funnily (or is it depressingly?), this brings me back around to the question I’ve been struggling to answer for over a year now: “What is it, exactly, that you’re going to do over there?” As a Natural Resource Management Volunteer, I also have sector-specific goals to guide my work. These include increasing the sustainability and profitability of agricultural activities (e.g. improved storage of fruits leading to more sales), improving community health through sustainable use of naturally occurring foods and medicines (e.g. planting trees with highly nutritious leaves for use in sauces), and helping the community to actively manage their environment (e.g. creating management plans.) But of course, I didn’t exactly arrive and have my boss tell me, “this is what you need to do”- that’s not really her job, since part of my job is figuring that out. And while lots of people in Madoubougou have told me what they want me to do, it’s generally more along the lines of, “Build us a hospital,” “Give me money to put a fence around my field,” or the somewhat more feasible “find someone who wants to buy all these unprocessed cashew nuts we have.”
You see, my role here is poorly understood- sometimes even greatly misunderstood. So many organizations come into Mali and, usually with the best intentions, drop down a bunch of money in an attempt to solve a problem without looking at all aspects of the situation or ensuring proper use of the money. Naturally that’s what most people in Madoubougou think I’m here to do until I explain otherwise (and usually even after). But PC instead attempts to provide sustainable, long term results in specified areas of need- helping people to help themselves. I’m far from an expert in “development” or its accompanying theory, but the idea is along the lines of “Give a man a fish and he can eat today. Teach him how to fish, and he can eat for the rest of his life.” (p.s. I have no idea who said that.)
So the point here is that it has taken/is taking me a long time to figure out what I am doing here. But this is what I come up with so far:
-The tree plantation I talked about starting with the Men’s Association fell through for various reasons, among them my inability to give them free seeds to start it and the virtual impossibility of calling any sort of meeting to organize the work.
-I’m still working with the Women’s Association, along with a Non-Government Organization (NGO) in Sikasso, to get a cereal grinder. Along with that I want to have literacy and basic management classes so that the women can operate the mill as a self-sustaining business. The idea is to get the majority of it funded through PC’s funding sources, with the community funding the rest through both cash and labor (e.g. building the building in which the grinder will be housed). The major hitch in this process has been getting the budget worked out, but it’s coming along. Most likely, I’ll be trying to get funding through something called Peace Corps Partnership Program, which is basically just an official way to gather money from personal sponsors in the states (e.g. you!). But I’ll wait until I’ve got it all ready to be submitted before I make my real sales pitch. :) So stay posted…
-Since most of the women in Madoubougou lack basic numeracy (they can count and do basic math verbally but can’t recognize or write the numbers) and could all benefit from keeping track of the little bit of money they make/spend, I’ve taken this on as what we like to call a “secondary project”. First, a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer, Kylee (my wonderful girlfriend), came to Madoubougou to give a couple of introductory classes on numeracy and personal accounting, which went really well. Now the idea is to continue working with the women on this, ideally to the point where at least 1 of them can teach it to others herself. That’s a little ways off though…
-Building/teaching people to make mud stoves. The basic idea of them is just about heat conservation to reduce the amount of wood needed to cook. All cooking in Mali, generally, is done over an open fire; these mud stoves work around the same fire, just containing the heat. A nearby fellow NRM volunteer, Autumn, came to Madoubougou, and we showed a group of men how to make the stoves. People really like the ones that’ve been made so far, and everybody else keeps asking me about them. But since its rainy season now I think they’re kind of on hold til next dry season.
-Finally, I just finished up at a training workshop, together with the President of the Women’s Association, to learn more about working with shea, a tree nut common in much of Mali and processed mainly for its oil- commonly known as shea butter. The training was funded by USAID and facilitated by regional shea experts along with some PC staff and volunteers. 18 volunteers came with 24 community counterparts who work in shea. We learned a lot about the industry, from proper preparation of the nuts for storage (if wanting to sell to exporters) to what role rural Malian women do/could play in the shea industry. Hopefully Djeneba, the Madoubougou Women’s Asso. Pres., and I having attended this training will lead to the women in and around Madoubougou being able to profit from this abundant resource. If we’re able to properly prepare a bulk quantity of shea nuts, there are buyers willing to come get them this season. So we’ve got that going for us…
Other than that, I’ve got a bunch of ideas (working with beekeepers; organizing some sort of environmental education program for next school year) that have yet to see even beginning stages. We’ll see…
So that's a brief recap of my "work" (Kris- look here for my quarterly report... just kidding it's coming). The one last thing I wanted to share with you all this time around is my story of Lazy. Don't cry, 'cause I didn't and she was my dog-
Lots of PCV’s have dogs. In fact there are dogs all over Mali. Except Madoubougou. For some reason most of the people in Madoubougou hate dogs. Granted, dogs aren’t treated very well anywhere in Mali, but I swear I live in the only village with no dogs. (Nor donkeys, but that’s another story all together.) Before I took Lazy home from Sikasso, I did actually notice that there weren’t any dogs here. When I asked about it, though, all I found out was “that there used to be some but then they died and now there isn’t any.” OK. And there’s dogs in all the surrounding villages- like the rest of the country. All the PCVs I asked about their dogs said their host family watched it for them when they left and there weren’t any problems with having one. I even thought for a second that it was a good thing there aren’t any other dogs here since then I might be a able to get away with not having her spade. So, everything’s cool then, right? Well, then I brought her home. Despite the fact that she is naturally one of the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever seen, I’ve gotten nothing but a hard time about her. "She chases chickens," (but never catches them). "She chases children," (most of whom call her 1st- its their new favorite game). "She puts her mouth in our dishes," (that we leave on the ground). OK, that one is pretty gross, but I would feel worse about it if all the goats, sheep, and fowl weren’t doing the same thing. The 1st few times I left her in Madoubougou, a boy from my host family (host dad’s nephew) took care of her for me, taking her out to the fields with him; no problem. Then he told me he couldn’t watch her anymore because everyone hated her and everyone was getting mad at him and threatening to shoot Lazy. So I asked my host dad if his son could take care of Lazy. No problem, he said, but they would tie her up some of the time. Gradually, I could tell (and finally some people were telling me) that she was being left off to run around less and less until this last time she was left off maybe 3 times over the course of 2 weeks. This included a couple of nights when storms came and the rope she was on was too short for her to get out of the rain. So I’ve decided it’s best just to give up. I agreed to give her away to Fousseynou’s friend in a nearby village, and Saturday morning he came and got her. Lazy came right to me to let me put the rope on ther, then she just walked away with her new owner like they were just heading out for a walk. That made it seem OK, in a way- like maybe she’s better off.
So anyways that's my story. Until next time- peace!
But I suppose some of that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I have been working pretty hard on the 1st 2 goals of PC (yeah for cultural exchange!). You see, the first and second of the PC’s 3 goals are a better understanding of Americans by foreigners and a better understanding of foreigners by Americans, respectively. So by just hanging out with Malians and talking about, well, just about anything, I’m actually accomplishing something. And by telling you all about it (whether now or later) I am at least attempting to fulfil part of my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer… This isn’t just a 2 year vacation, I swear! :)
Speaking of the 3 goals of PC, you might be asking, “What’s the 3rd?” (or maybe even, “What exactly are my taxes paying for?”- but we’ll get back to that in a second… sort of). The 3rd goal reads something like, “to help meet the country’s need for trained men and women.” This implies some sort of transfer of knowledge, or “capacity building”. Funnily (or is it depressingly?), this brings me back around to the question I’ve been struggling to answer for over a year now: “What is it, exactly, that you’re going to do over there?” As a Natural Resource Management Volunteer, I also have sector-specific goals to guide my work. These include increasing the sustainability and profitability of agricultural activities (e.g. improved storage of fruits leading to more sales), improving community health through sustainable use of naturally occurring foods and medicines (e.g. planting trees with highly nutritious leaves for use in sauces), and helping the community to actively manage their environment (e.g. creating management plans.) But of course, I didn’t exactly arrive and have my boss tell me, “this is what you need to do”- that’s not really her job, since part of my job is figuring that out. And while lots of people in Madoubougou have told me what they want me to do, it’s generally more along the lines of, “Build us a hospital,” “Give me money to put a fence around my field,” or the somewhat more feasible “find someone who wants to buy all these unprocessed cashew nuts we have.”
You see, my role here is poorly understood- sometimes even greatly misunderstood. So many organizations come into Mali and, usually with the best intentions, drop down a bunch of money in an attempt to solve a problem without looking at all aspects of the situation or ensuring proper use of the money. Naturally that’s what most people in Madoubougou think I’m here to do until I explain otherwise (and usually even after). But PC instead attempts to provide sustainable, long term results in specified areas of need- helping people to help themselves. I’m far from an expert in “development” or its accompanying theory, but the idea is along the lines of “Give a man a fish and he can eat today. Teach him how to fish, and he can eat for the rest of his life.” (p.s. I have no idea who said that.)
So the point here is that it has taken/is taking me a long time to figure out what I am doing here. But this is what I come up with so far:
-The tree plantation I talked about starting with the Men’s Association fell through for various reasons, among them my inability to give them free seeds to start it and the virtual impossibility of calling any sort of meeting to organize the work.
-I’m still working with the Women’s Association, along with a Non-Government Organization (NGO) in Sikasso, to get a cereal grinder. Along with that I want to have literacy and basic management classes so that the women can operate the mill as a self-sustaining business. The idea is to get the majority of it funded through PC’s funding sources, with the community funding the rest through both cash and labor (e.g. building the building in which the grinder will be housed). The major hitch in this process has been getting the budget worked out, but it’s coming along. Most likely, I’ll be trying to get funding through something called Peace Corps Partnership Program, which is basically just an official way to gather money from personal sponsors in the states (e.g. you!). But I’ll wait until I’ve got it all ready to be submitted before I make my real sales pitch. :) So stay posted…
-Since most of the women in Madoubougou lack basic numeracy (they can count and do basic math verbally but can’t recognize or write the numbers) and could all benefit from keeping track of the little bit of money they make/spend, I’ve taken this on as what we like to call a “secondary project”. First, a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer, Kylee (my wonderful girlfriend), came to Madoubougou to give a couple of introductory classes on numeracy and personal accounting, which went really well. Now the idea is to continue working with the women on this, ideally to the point where at least 1 of them can teach it to others herself. That’s a little ways off though…
-Building/teaching people to make mud stoves. The basic idea of them is just about heat conservation to reduce the amount of wood needed to cook. All cooking in Mali, generally, is done over an open fire; these mud stoves work around the same fire, just containing the heat. A nearby fellow NRM volunteer, Autumn, came to Madoubougou, and we showed a group of men how to make the stoves. People really like the ones that’ve been made so far, and everybody else keeps asking me about them. But since its rainy season now I think they’re kind of on hold til next dry season.
-Finally, I just finished up at a training workshop, together with the President of the Women’s Association, to learn more about working with shea, a tree nut common in much of Mali and processed mainly for its oil- commonly known as shea butter. The training was funded by USAID and facilitated by regional shea experts along with some PC staff and volunteers. 18 volunteers came with 24 community counterparts who work in shea. We learned a lot about the industry, from proper preparation of the nuts for storage (if wanting to sell to exporters) to what role rural Malian women do/could play in the shea industry. Hopefully Djeneba, the Madoubougou Women’s Asso. Pres., and I having attended this training will lead to the women in and around Madoubougou being able to profit from this abundant resource. If we’re able to properly prepare a bulk quantity of shea nuts, there are buyers willing to come get them this season. So we’ve got that going for us…
Other than that, I’ve got a bunch of ideas (working with beekeepers; organizing some sort of environmental education program for next school year) that have yet to see even beginning stages. We’ll see…
So that's a brief recap of my "work" (Kris- look here for my quarterly report... just kidding it's coming). The one last thing I wanted to share with you all this time around is my story of Lazy. Don't cry, 'cause I didn't and she was my dog-
Lots of PCV’s have dogs. In fact there are dogs all over Mali. Except Madoubougou. For some reason most of the people in Madoubougou hate dogs. Granted, dogs aren’t treated very well anywhere in Mali, but I swear I live in the only village with no dogs. (Nor donkeys, but that’s another story all together.) Before I took Lazy home from Sikasso, I did actually notice that there weren’t any dogs here. When I asked about it, though, all I found out was “that there used to be some but then they died and now there isn’t any.” OK. And there’s dogs in all the surrounding villages- like the rest of the country. All the PCVs I asked about their dogs said their host family watched it for them when they left and there weren’t any problems with having one. I even thought for a second that it was a good thing there aren’t any other dogs here since then I might be a able to get away with not having her spade. So, everything’s cool then, right? Well, then I brought her home. Despite the fact that she is naturally one of the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever seen, I’ve gotten nothing but a hard time about her. "She chases chickens," (but never catches them). "She chases children," (most of whom call her 1st- its their new favorite game). "She puts her mouth in our dishes," (that we leave on the ground). OK, that one is pretty gross, but I would feel worse about it if all the goats, sheep, and fowl weren’t doing the same thing. The 1st few times I left her in Madoubougou, a boy from my host family (host dad’s nephew) took care of her for me, taking her out to the fields with him; no problem. Then he told me he couldn’t watch her anymore because everyone hated her and everyone was getting mad at him and threatening to shoot Lazy. So I asked my host dad if his son could take care of Lazy. No problem, he said, but they would tie her up some of the time. Gradually, I could tell (and finally some people were telling me) that she was being left off to run around less and less until this last time she was left off maybe 3 times over the course of 2 weeks. This included a couple of nights when storms came and the rope she was on was too short for her to get out of the rain. So I’ve decided it’s best just to give up. I agreed to give her away to Fousseynou’s friend in a nearby village, and Saturday morning he came and got her. Lazy came right to me to let me put the rope on ther, then she just walked away with her new owner like they were just heading out for a walk. That made it seem OK, in a way- like maybe she’s better off.
So anyways that's my story. Until next time- peace!
posted by Rob McCann at 6:05 PM
1 Comments:
Robert,
Just happened to check your site for the first time in months. Your experience is interestingly much like what our water well drillers experience in Tanzania.
The first reality is the African idea of time, resources, money, goals, and desires seems to be the opposite of ours. It has taken several years but our drilling team is now able to go to Tanzania and get quite a bit done while they are there.
You should see results eventually--in African time not American time.
Janet
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