TV in Kissa!

Kissa's first boobtube in color!

Malians can be pretty inventive.  For example, in Kissa, a town with no electricity, people frequently watch TV!  They hook them up to solar panels, diesel engines, or even running motorcycles.  They plop in a french DVD with a lot of fighting or Malian music videos, gather around and squint at a tiny, usually black and white screen, and get their only look at the world outside their village.  On holidays, when people stay up late and don't have to work in the fields, sometimes crowds of up to 100 people will gather to watch a 20 inch screen!  Of the american TV they watch, a big favorite is 24, which they call "Jack Bower."

Seliba!

 Hello everyone!  I came into town for Thanksgiving, and got to enjoy some delicious American food and meet up with almost a hundred other Peace Corps volunteers from all over Mali, in the city of Sikasso.  Now I am back in Bougouni, my regional capitol, and have finally managed to grab a computer and some internet long enough to upload some pictures!

So when I was in Kissa a few weeks ago, the people of Mali (and Muslims all over the world) celebrated their biggest holiday, called Seliba, which in Bambara literally means "big prayer."  The festival, called Eid al-Adha in Arabic, commemorates Abraham's willingness to kill Ishmael (or Isaac, if you follow the Hebrew version of the story).  Because God stopped Abraham from killing his son and gave him a sheep to kill instead, Muslims celebrate this holiday by feasting on mutton.

On the morning of Seliba, the entire village gathered in from of the madrassa and lined up in rows.  As they gathered, wearing all of their finest clothes, one of the religious leaders of the community was preaching.  Finally when everyone was assembled, the whole village said a Muslim prayer together, taking about 15 minutes.  I also said the prayer, which involves a lot of bending over, touching your head to the ground, standing back up, saying "allahu akbar" and repeating. Then, the most respected men and highest religious authorities in the village gathered under a shawl to say, presumably more prayers, while the poorer people in the community can ask for alms.  Finally, everyone goes home to have fun, dance, and eat, eat, eat!

 This is the village assembled to pray.  The men are in front and the women in back, just as is the custom inside a mosque.  This is a rule because, if men see the women bend over to pray, they probably wont be thinking about allah anymore...

 The leading religious figures of the community gathered under a shawl.  Not sure if all Muslims do this or if, like many of Kissa's traditions, this is a hold over from a ritual in Kissa's animist past.

 A poorer member of the community (he has no kids) collecting alms.

 The slaughtered sheep being prepared.

 

 Mutton being distributed on a metal sheet.  For many Malians, this is one of the few times a year that they get to eat meat.

 Musicians who put on traditional Bamanan clothing and played music!

 This Shagga, wearing his finest clothing.  He has been working in Mauritania for the past three years on a commercial fishing boat, and came home for the first time to celebrate Seliba.  He is now back in Mauritania.

Like Shagga, I will soon be traveling home for my culture's holidays (although I haven't quite been gone for three years!).  I am super excited to get back home again and see everyone.... I'll be home in 11 days!!  Then it's back to Mali for another year or so!

The Arabic School in Kissa

So in my previous blog post, I talked about the French school in Kissa.  This is the Arabic school.

Students who finish with the Arabic school are able to read the Koran in it's original language and have the chance to become an Imam (sort of a muslim priest or pastor) or a Marabout (sort of like a theologian), two of the most prestigious jobs available in Malian culture.  In addition to reading and writing in Arabic, the students also learn mathematics, using the Eastern Arabic numberals.  The school in Kissa only has very young students, those that excell here go onto a more advanced religious school in another town.

Before the French colonization, Arabic schools were the only schools in Mali.  Today, French is a much more prevalant language in almost all sectors of Malian life except for religion, and Arabic schools recieve much less funding than French schools.  Nevertheless, many parents still choose to send there children to these schools, even though this education here seems to be much less usefull than a French education, because religion plays such an important role in Malian life.

Back in School!

The rainy season is finally coming to an end.  The people of Kissa are reaping harvests of beans, corn, millet, peanuts and cotton.  New fruits and vegetable that thrive at this time of year, like watermelon, cucumbers, and pumpking are available.  Food is plentiful and people are able to eat a healthy variety of foods.  Also, now that there is less work in the fields, kids are returning to school!

There are two schools in Kissa, an Arabic school and a French school.  The French school is funded by the Malian government and also in large part by the American NGO Save the Children.  It is a first cycle what we would call an elementary school, and it goes to 6th grade.  When kids finish there, they take a test.  If they pass the test, they can go on middle school, and if they pass the test at the end of middle school, they can go on to high school.  There is only an elementary school in Kissa, so students who pass the test at the end must move to a bigger town for middle and high school.  Many students do not pass these tests, and, if they fail it twice, they are done studying.  Most student who fail become farmers, although some move to cities and try to find jobs with the minimal education they have.

To give you an idea of the prevalence of education, at least in Kissa, I would say that about half of the kids in Kissa, especially girls, never go to school, and never learn to read.  Of those that go to school, most make it to middle school, although a significant portion to not pass the test to move on.  Getting from middle school to high school is a lot harder though: last year in my village, 16 students took the test, and only 2 passed.  Getting from high school to college is similarly very difficult in Mali.

Is is also worth noting that there is a huge gender gap in education in Mali, especially in small, rural villages like Kissa.  As you look at the pictures below, notice how much the boys outnumber the girls.  This is due to a variety of factors.  One reason is that boys work is mostly in farming, which lessens during the school year, which girls' work is in the household, which does not lessen in the school year.  Thus, parents lose a helping hand if they send a girl to school, but not so much if they send a boy to school.  Another reason is that school (and the world beyond Kissa) is not considered a girls "place".  Girls are also expected to marry and start having children around age 15, before they might even be finished with middle school, while boys wait much later to marry.  Finally, a have heard a few men (but certainly not all) make the downright sexist and incorrect claim that women are not as smart as men.

Here is the French school in Mali:

This is the 1st and 2nd grade classroom, and the teacher:

There are three classrooms in the school, and each has two grades in it.  In this classroom, students start learning their letters, and how to read and write in French (a language that they've never even spoken before). They also learn some basic Math.

This is the 3rd and 4th grade class:

Here, students continue to learn reading and writing in French.  They also continue learning Math, and start learning History and Geography.

And this is the 5th and 6th grade class:

Here, students study pretty much everything american students do: reading and writing (in French), math, geography and history, science.  They also have homework and spend a lot of time preparing for the big test to decide if they can go to middle school.

So that is what school is like in Kissa!

Some pictures from Kissa

So I'm in Sikasso now.  The internet is decent here and there is a public computer, so I got to upload some pictures!

Recently in village was the month of Ramadan, when Muslim adults don't eat food or drink water from dawn till dusk, and then have a big feast every night.  I joined them in fasting for a few days, but there's no way I could make it a whole month.  Plus, they work long days in the fields, doing hard labor while they are fasting.  At the end of Ramadan is Seli (or Aid El-Fitr in Arabic), it is kind of like the Malian Christmas.  Malian put on their nice clothes, eat nice food and dance, and they all want me to take their picture.

Also, my village has been visited by elephants!  Which is exciting and unexpected since theyre extremely rare in Mali.  Nevertheless, its a huge problem for my village's farmers, as elephants can destroy tons of crops.  Just another threat to Kissa's already precarious food security.

 

This is Adama and Usthman, striking Karate poses.  Theyre both really helpful, they water my garden for me when I'm out of town.  Theyre kind of my best friends.

 

This is Musa, my host-fathers son.

 

This is a group of women, they were all dressed up for Seli, the holiday at the end of Ramadan, and wanted me to take their picture.  They're my neighbors.

 

Some men, sitting around and playing checkers.  Again, they are dressed up for Seli.  Those one in green on the right is my homologue, who is assigned to work with me in the village.

  

So elephants (or maybe actually just one) came up from the south.  Apparently they come up during the rainy season.  They are a bit of a nuisance, breaking into gardens (above) and trampling and eating crops (below).  As far as I know, I am the only volunteer in Mali to have elephants at their site, which I guess is fair compensation for having a site way out in the bush.  I haven't seen the elephants yet, just their damage.  It is illegal to kill are harass the elephants, since they are endangered.  The government is supposed to re-compensate farmers for damaged crops, although this does not always happen

Teaching Fadjine to Read

 

This is my neighbor, Fadjine.  He's 26 years old, and he works hard everyday in the fields.  The last time my village had a festival, at the start of the rainy season, he put on his nicest clothes and asked to take his photograph next to his proudest possession, his motorcycle.

 Like more than half of Malians, Fadjine is illiterate, and lately he's been asking me to teach him to read.  In Mali, learning to read is made difficult by the fact that most of the population speaks Bambara, but there are almost no written materials in Bambara.  Books, legal documents, and newspapers are all in French.  In schools, Malians learn reading and French - at the same time.  Malians speak French to varying degrees: in Bamako it is almost as common as Bambara, but in a small village like Kissa, someone who never went to school wouldn't know more than a handful of phrases. 

Fadjine doesn't speak French, but he was very persistent in asking me to teach him to read.  So one day I grabbed a paper and pencil, wrote down the letter A, and said "this is 'A,' it goes 'Aaaaa.'"  He doesn't even know the full alphabet yet, but he learns a few more letters every night. 

It's surprising how complicated reading and writing really is.  Fadjine will stare at four letters for a painfully long time, slowly repeating the letters under his breath "Behh - Aaaa - Seh - Iiii, Behh - Aaaa - Seh - Iiii."  Sometimes it will take a minute before it finally crystallizes and he says triumphantly "BASI!."  Then he attempts to write the word under where I have written it, carefully reproducing those tiny weird squiggles. 

 I write down Bambara words for him to read, reasoning that, maybe, once he knows all the sounds, he can start learning a little French.  But he has a long way to go.

More Q & A

 I am currently doing a correspondence program with a friend from home who is also a teacher, Greg Shurman.  I'll be working with the school in my village and with his civics class in Florida, to help them get to know each other!  Anyway, Greg sent me a letter introducing his students and in it he asked some interesting questions.  I figured I'd put them up here for everyone to see.







Does your host family know much about the United States?  No, but I'm always teaching them and telling them stuff.  All they really know is that "there's a lot of money there!"

Do you have time to teach them about our culture? Yeah, thats actually a big part of my job.

Will you be in Kissa the entire two years or will you travel to other parts of Mali? I get to leave Kissa occasionally (for example, to go to a bigger city and get internet).  But, my work will be in Kissa and I will be spending most of my time there for the next two years.

What is the Peace Corps goal in Mali? The peace corps has three goals. First and foremost, to provide assistance and technical expertise to peoples who are lacking it, to help them escape poverty.  However, the Peace Corps also serves to educate Malians about America, and to educate Americans about Mali (hence the exchange we're doing)

Where do you see places like Kissa in the next 10 years?  Thats really hard to say!  Change happens slowly here.  I would like to see Kissa's children healthier, better fed and with more access to medicines. I think thats the biggest thing.  Another thing would be to have more kids going to school and learning to read (most of the town is illiterate).

Does it cool down at night?  Yes, but during the hot season (which is over now, whew) you pretty much still sweat at night.

What are the main problems facing west Africa and Mali?  Where to begin?  Corruption, poor infrastructure, lack of education... I'd say those are the biggest things hindering development.

What are some solutions to these problems?  I think the most comprehensive and long-term solution is better education.  Everything else is just a band-aid solution.

What nations are involved in the region that you are working?  The big ones are America, France (who colonized Mali), China and Libya.  Americans do a lot of development work but the military has a presence here as al-qaida is in northern Mali.  The Chinese do a lot of work building infrastructure to help Chinese business interests (which still ends up helping Mali, but more inadvertently). Libya (ie Qaddafi) wants Mali as an ally, and spends a lot of money trying to look like Mali's helpful big brother. They have paid for big, showy buildings in Bamako and give Malians cheap oil. Many Malians support Qaddafi and are upset about what Americans are doing over there now.

Is your host family curious about the United States? Yes, very much so. They don't know much about it, and many things about America and Mali are so different.  It can be hard for them to understand, or for me to explain things like, say, why anyone would have a job other then as a farmer, consumerism, religious pluralism, a free press and un-corrupt government, homosexuality and transsexualism, environmental issues, American relationships...