Another thing that doesn't fit my narrative...

(do yourself a favor and read the previous post if you haven't already). After the dugutigi died, his oldest son was unceremoniously selected as the new village chief (he knew he was going to inherit the position soon enough). The new dugutigi has two twin girls. One day, I jokingly asked him which one was older. His response was interesting and I was surprised he even had a serious answer to begin with.

He definitively considered the girl who had exited the womb first to be younger than the one who came out second. This was contrary to the answer I was expecting. I mean, clearly the one who "entered the world first" should be considered the oldest, right? His explanation was that, in the womb, the older child gave deference to the younger one, allowing the younger twin to exit first as a matter of courtesy.

This anecdote struck me as interesting, especially since both theories are equally ridiculous! Infants who have never seen the light of day have no notion of courtesy. Likewise, what temporal difference is there between the inside and the outside of the uterus? The first relies on a customary logic while the other is grounded in the arbitrary notion of an apparent beginning. These are both, of course, not serious postulations concerning the proper age of the child, especially since Malians rarely keep track of their own ages and never celebrate birthdays. But it does seem to provide a little (naive) insight into the ways that each culture filled the ambiguous logical void left in the wake of my initial question. There's no veritable answer and yet it seems both cultures have collectively formulated a playful explanation with respect to their own unique priorities and assumptions.

N bora so, n nana so

I'm nearing the end of my first three months at site; a time when the question "What the hell am I doing here?!" tends to peak in volume and intensity. Africa has been exceptionally kind to me. I haven't suffered any life-threatening illnesses, the locals offer me nothing short of devoted friendship, the food is tolerable (though I'll never eat squirrel again), and my Bambara shows signs of improvement. I even found a local store that gets regular shipments of expired Snickers bars. But I don't mean to imply that there aren't frustrations. Indeed, I devote a lot of energy to being pissed off. Language barriers, limited contact with home, almost no privacy and a never-ending supply of unusual encounters are all reliable sources of frustration that, collectively, move the simplest tasks and the most surmountable obstacles into the realm of near impossibility. Most of all, I miss my friends and family. It's difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that, even in my absence, time in America continues. I was shocked to realize that the lives of my friends and family continue to move along their normal (though never predictable) trajectory--even when I'm not there as a witness. Marriages, birthdays, graduations, celebrations and tragedies happening in America are now, for me, distant events that I can only experience through descriptive reproductions in e-mails (keep them coming) and phone calls (I could always use more of those). This thought and the excessive amount of free time I have to reflect on my own loneliness, boredom and disillusionment makes the almost unthinkable prospect of going home even more attractive.

Still, I think I'm in this for the long run. There are highs and lows to being a Peace Corps volunteer but they have a tendency to "level out" as time goes on. I've developed a strange habit of categorically declaring my days "good" or "bad" around 2:30pm everyday; a near-arbitrary assessment that is inevitably reversed by 8:00pm. On decidedly good days, I feel free, the world is rich with possibility and I'm convinced I could stay for a third year. On bad days I feel like an accomplice in my own capture, ready to charter a West-bound luxury cruise across the Atlantic. However, it seems like, as I get acclimated to my new surroundings and my role here begins to take shape, while the highs aren't quite as high, the lows aren't nearly as low.

Back in August (wow, it's been awhile since I've updated this thing) I moved to my site in Kalibene. Installation was a little rough. I was, of course, last on the list to be installed and by the time my luggage was removed from the top of the truck, it was already pitch dark and raining. The circumstances were particularly irritating because my installation occurred during Ramadan and I had to work with a handful of impatient Malians who were itching to break their fast. Almost everything I owned was heavy with rainwater. My bike and bed frame (handmade with bamboo and cowhide!) made it out okay but my clothes and my mattress (basically an oversized sponge) required a few days in the sun. I'm happy with my new house. It's, essentially, a two-room version of my old house, only slightly larger. Kalibene has never hosted a volunteer so the house was built only a few months ago. The mud brick walls are freshly set and the wooden crossbeams aren't termite-ridden. I have my own latrine and bathing area and there's a small shed-like structure apart from the rest of the house, which will eventually be my kitchen. My total living living space is enclosed within a four-foot wall. Since goats and chickens seem to have no problem getting over the wall, I suspect it was constructed to prevent more annoying pests, like children and donkeys, from pressing their noses against my screen door or rooting through my trashcan. Getting my house set-up was a slow process made even slower by the fact that I hardly spend any time inside of it. Part of the reason is the heat: Malians build their houses out of the same materials they use to make their ovens. However, for the past few months, I've spent a lot of time getting to know everyone in my community, shaking hands with local leaders, town mayors and village chiefs. I'm often introduced by my homologue, Luckman Sangare, who is an extremely well-connected individual in the area.

A few weeks ago I started my baseline survey. I've been busy visiting families and asking questions about their sanitation practices and their water sources. I'm not even halfway finished with the survey but I already have a good idea about what Kalibene needs; namely, latrines. Kalibene is a village of 800 people and I've only been able to find about seven latrines (two of which are collapsed). To put it plainly, my job for the next year is to 1) find out where people are shitting, 2) find out why they're shitting there and 3) teach them how to build latrines they can shit in.

In my second year I have to do something about the distribution of drinking water in my village. Kalibene has two working pumps (one has been broken since March and the locals don't have money for a repair) but since everyone lives so far apart, many people have to walk about two kilometers to get water while others only have to walk 100 meters. But I probably won't be building a new pump. Building a new pump is difficult and expensive and, unlike most villages, the houses in Kalibene are widely separated by farmland. Even if I had $10,000, regardless of where the new pump is installed, only a handful of people would be helped since all of the households are located so far apart from one another.

I certainly have a lot of work to do. I'll think I'll talk more about my work in a later post when I'm a little more certain about my role in the community.

About a month ago my dugutigi (village chief) died at age 80. The day before, I visited the old man and offered some blessings. I entered his small hut and the heat was stifling. The chief lay naked with a sheet covering his torso as his two sons fanned him off with old newspapers. The man was a complete skeleton and I was told he hadn't eaten anything in days. The scene was strangely symbolic. A small cluster of bats was hanging directly over the dugutigi's bed though no one, except me, seemed to notice. The air was thick with the specter of death and it was undeniable that the end was near. It was sobering and tragic to see such an old man die, especially one who knew so much about the history of Kalibene and Mali in general. There's a proverb here that says, "Seeing an old person die is like watching a library burn to the ground."

After easing a brief, village-wide panic incited by some confusion over exactly who had died (the dugutigi and I share the same name), I rode my bike to the funeral. Bikes and motorcycles filled the chief's concession. Everyone from Kalibene and hundreds of people from neighboring villages came to pay their respects. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits (funerals here are more like celebrations than somber occasions) and the chief's wife was the only one who seemed to carry a fixed expression of solemn resignation. My homologue and I approached the body which was protected from the sun by a makeshift tent made out of white sheets. The local Imam washed the body, carefully scrubbing the limp arms and legs with a religious vigor. The chief looked much as he did the day before.

I was allowed to the see the body and the hole it was to be placed in but I wasn't allowed to see the burial itself. I was told it would have been too crowded, which is true, but I suspect there were other religious reasons barring my presence. Every man in the village marched down a narrow pathway to the grave site. The chief's body was wrapped in a white linen sheet and carried overhead on a thin wooden stretcher made earlier that day.

While the men buried the body, the women made massive amounts of rice and peanut sauce. Two cows, three goats and a few chickens were slaughtered that morning so there was plenty of food to go around. When the men came back, I realized just how much of a sanitation nightmare this event was turning out to be. My Peace Corps training as a water and sanitation volunteer has made me extra sensitive to instances of poor sanitation but this situation was disgusting by any standard. While I made a point of washing my hands before eating, I was forced to eat out of the same bowl with three men who had just buried a dead guy (they merely cleansed their grimy fingers with a slash of water). Also, after eating, I mindlessly accepted a dried fig from the Imam (I felt culturally obligated to eat it at the time). In addition to the fact that I shouldn't be eating unpeelable fruit without first soaking it in bleach water, I had eaten a fig handed to me by the Imam who, moments before, was scrubbing the dugutigi's corpse. I, of course, only considered this after the fig was fully digested. This seemed to go beyond a mere transfer of bacteria. My body had thouroughly absorbed the residues of death among other things.

The entire ordeal was rarely accompanied by even an ounce of sadness. Since the dugutigi was so old, everyone probably saw his death coming. Indeed, after we ate and the praying was over, people hung around to chat, drink tea and tell jokes. I've never attended a funeral before but this event wasn't at all similar to my idea of what a funeral should be. People were in such a good mood that stories and jokes about the deceased seemed to be without sensible limits. I introduced myself to a man who I've never seen before. I told him my name was Seydou Berthe (the same name as the dugutigi). The man's eyes widened and he laughed as he turned to the crowd of people drinking tea. "Look everyone!" he said. "Seydou isn't dead, he just turned into a white guy!" Everyone laughed hysterically and I, not knowing what could possibly be considered inappropriate at this point, smiled nervously and slinked away.