Ebola Prevalence

I am leaving in three weeks to do my research for my Masters thesis in Mali. I can't wait. However, something that has been on my mind lately is the ebola outbreak in nearby Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The media sure is talking a lot about it, and my family and friends are quite worried about this epidemic in West Africa.

But how much of an epidemic is it really? Well, there are about 21.6 million people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the three countries most affected by the outbreak. In those countries, there have been 959 Ebola deaths as of August 8th, according to the Word Health Organization. That means that 0.0044% of the population died from Ebola since the start of the outbreak, in March 2014.

To compare that to US statistic, we had 32,482 fatal car crashes in 2011. Given our population of 316 million, in a five month period, the average American had a 0.0048% chance of dying in a car accident in 2011.

That means an American was just about as likely to die in a car crash in a 5 month period as a West African from Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia was to die from Ebola in the 5 months since the outbreak began.  Fatal car accidents are a real problem in America, and everyday we do things to minimize the chances of such a car accident happening to us - we drive carefully and soberly, and we wear seat-belts.  Similarly, Ebola is a real problem in West Africa, yet there are things you can do - I that I certainly will do - to minimize your exposure and make it a manageable risk.

Ebola is dangerous, and something the world should deal with quickly and decisively. But it is not rampant, just a fatal car accidents are not rampant here in America.

Sa Pilipinas!

So here I am in the Philippines!

I just finished two weeks in Manila, the capital, for training.  Manila is a city of extremes - it has terrible pollution and poverty, as well as some of the nicest, cleanest malls in the world.

Here's some shots from the Mall of Asia, with a parking lot so clean you could eat off of it, and even an ice skating rink!

Nevertheless, the usual street scene is choked with motorcycles, pedestrians, cars and tricycles.  The air is noisy and dirty.  The most common form of public transit is in elaborately decorated and personalized vehicles called jeepneys.

Although Manila has plenty of western malls and supermarkets, old fashioned street markets abound, filled with fish, meat, produce and lots of random oddities.

(live eels)

This is my training group, after a day at the beach.  Since a very common means of transit among these 7,000 islands is leaky wooden boats, we had to go through water safety training.

And this is us with the American ambassador to the Philippines, Harry Thomas.  I'm wearing a Barong, the traditional Filipino formal wear.

I just got to my site on Friday night, and have been enjoying a relaxing weekend after the chaos of Manila.  I start work for the first time tomorrow.  My housing here couldn't be more different from how it was in Mali - I have running water (hot AND cold), electricity, AC... actually I live at a wakeboarding resort!  The provincial government here owns a wakeboarding resort with lots of space, and since I will be working for them and they are responsible for housing me, they decided to put me up here.  So this is more Posh-Corps than Peace Corps I guess.  In fact, here's the view from where I'm sitting now:

Alaska!

So I found myself unexpectedly back from Peace Corps: unemployed and living at home.  A situation I never wanted to be in.  So I applied for stuff like crazy, back in Africa and all over America.  I finally found a position though the SCA with the Juneau Forestry Sciences Lab.  This stuff is a lot more like what I was doing in Ohio than for Peace Corps.  I love working with forests and doing research in them.  I also love working internationally, in other languages and with other cultures.  Someday I hope to combine those two loves and work with forests and communities on a global scale in the fight against climate change.

Anyway, I'm in Alaska now!  Probably till Christmas but maybe longer.  Most of the work I'm doing is inside, analyzing and organizing data.  I do get some exciting field time, though. Here are some pictures. (The last four are thanks to my friend Andrea!)


Here are some shots of the Mendenhall Glacier, literally down the street from my house:

"Bergy Bits" - little icebergs that have broken off the glacier

A photo from on the glacier, which is actually really dirty 

These are from a 8-day data collecting trip I took down to Prince of Wales Island

 The float plane that I took to get down there!

 Some of the crew and our leader, "El Jefe" at snack thirty.

 A visual sample of the slash we had to deal with.  Slash is all the crap (branches and logs) left behind after logging.  It is unstable, rotten, and often several feet deep.  Probably the most challenging terrain to get through anywhere ever.

Our camp!

And finally:

The northern lights!  Felt so blessed that I got to see them.  It was such a miracle that the sky was clear at the same time as Auroral activity this far south, it really felt like it was meant to be!

Mali ends

So my time in Mali was cut short.  What an unexpected disappointment.  I had put so much work and personal investment into Mali: committing my time, learning the language and culture, making amazing friends in my village, getting close to other PCVs...

It took months, the better part of a year, to adjust to my life in Mali.  But I saw it as an investment: work hard to live in such a strange and uncomfortable setting, so I could get to know people from a totally different way of life as my own.  I wanted to get to know them on a level that could only be achieved through two years of total immersion.  I wanted to make lifelong friends, and even, possibly help them improve their lives.  

I was really looking forward to that second year.  It was all set up to be one of the best of my life.  I was just beginning to have an amazing time, and getting the ball rolling on some big projects.  I guess I didn't get as big a return on my investment in Mali as I was expecting.  But I still got a lot.  I met some amazing people, learned Bambara, and fell in love with West Africa.  And even if I didn't get the full Peace Corps experience, I got enough to be certain that I'll be back.

And as disappointing as it was for me to leave early, my troubles are nothing compared to what the people of Mali have had to endure: an ethnic revolt, islamofascists, civil war, a coup d'état, an embargo for a landlocked country, destruction of ancient religious shrines, a drought, withdrawal of much of the Western aid Mali has become dependent on.  And no clear resolution in sight...

Ala k'a nogoya

Seasons in Africa

Last October I took a walk around Kissa and brought my camera with me.  It was at the very end of the rainy season and the land was at its lushest and wettest.  I took some pictures of Kissa's giant Baobab tree, the pond, cornfields, paths and lanes, houses and even a well that was filled to the brim.

Then, a few days ago, I went around re-creating all those same pictures.  Except now Kissa is at the end of the dry season.  The grasses are all dead and burned away.  The pond and wells are dry.  Trees have lost their leaves.... So here are the pictures:

The Baobab Tree:

A Cornfield

The Pond

Mango Trees

Oil Palms

Houses

More Mango Trees

The Well

Bambara!

So one of the most fun things about my time here in Mali has been learning the local language, Bambara.  In many of my Anthropology classes, I had always been told that "language is a window into culture," and that "language is an essential part of a culture."  I had always sort of believed those things, but still felt that language was somehow also arbitrary, just a set of noises that could be easily exchanged with another set of noises.  However, I've realized just how much knowing Bambara has shaped my experience of Malian culture, how I have learned things that I never could have if I only spoke French.  I also realize how different two unrelated languages can be, and how there is much more to translation than simply replacing each word with its counterpart in another language.

Fun Words:
The words for sun and day are the same (Tile), as are the words for month and moon (Kalo), and year and rain (San).  So, if you say, "two years and three months ago," it is really the same things as saying "two rains and three moons ago."

One interesting thing about Bambara is how much bigger words are made out of smaller words.  For example, the word for bicycle (Nɛgɛso) is made out of the words for Iron (Nɛgɛ) and Horse (So), so it is essentialy Iron-Horse.  Other fun compound words include the words like:
    -Hypocrite (Jijukɔrɔsa) or Snake-Down-in-the-Water
    -A mentally ill person (Dajibɔ) or Mouth-Water-Comes-Out, ie, drooler
    -Bee (Diden) or Honey-Child
    -Fruit (Yiriden) or Tree-Child
    -Condom (Fukulannafama) or Very-Important-Hat

Sometimes what would be a phrase in English is just one world.  So, "store that sells farming implements" becomes "Farming-thing-selling-place" (Senekɛfenfeereyɔrɔ).

Other Fun Facts:
-Bambara is tonal (2 tones - a low tone and normal speaking)
-There are no conjugations or genders
-There are 4 extra letters: ɛ, which is a more open e; ɔ, which is a more open o; ɲ, which is like ny, as in annual; and ŋ, which is like ng, as in angular.
-It also can be written in the Arabic alphabet or in N'Ko, an alphabet inventing just for the Mande languages of West Africa.  Nevertheless, the latin alphabet is by far the most common.

A Window into Culture
One way that languages can be used as a window into a culture is by examining words that care commonly used in one language but do not translate easily into another.

Some words in Bambara that are not in English:
-Jija, roughly "to try one's best"
-Soli, "to wake up early in the morning"
-Sebe, a personality trait, which means serious, hard working and brave.  Perhaps Malians would have a harder time conceiving of someone who could be both lazy and brave, or serious and cowardly.

Some words in English that are not in Bambara:
-Favorite.  Malians are not used to choosing their favorite of something.
-Impress.  Maybe they dont talk about showing off as much as we do.
-Late.  Could explain why Malians are never, never on time.
-Colors.  Traditionally there is just "dark," "light," and "colored" in Bambara.  If you want to say something more specific, like Green, you could say "Healthy Grass-y," but this is uncommon.
-Normal.
-"I wish."  You could not easily say "I wish it wasn't hot here."  If you wanted to, you would have to say something roundabout like "If it was not hot here right now, that would be pleasing to me." Malians are not as wistful as we are.

Reconstructing the Past
Because two major cultures/languages have influenced Malian culture/language, it is possible to "date" the time period that a word, and thus a concept was introduced to Malians.  So, for example, because the words for god, religion, law and date palm are all similar in Arabic and Bambara, we can infer that there was no concept of a monotheistic god, of different religions, or  law before the Arabs showed up and brought Islam to Mali, around 1300 AD.  This is also probably when date palms were introduced to Mali.  Other concepts and technologies, like car, potato, and Christianity are similar to the French word, suggesting that these things were not introduced to Mali until around 1800 AD, when the French started colonizing Mali.

You have to be careful, though: some words that have their origin in other languages are just replacing native Bambara words.  For example, because the days of the week in Bambara resemble the days of the week in Arabic, I always assumed there were no weeks or days in traditional Malian culture.  That was, however, until I learned that there is a traditional six-day week, with many implications: some days are unlucky or lucky, some days require a baby to have a specific name if he is born on that day.  This traditional six-day week is rarely spoken about or used anymore.

So that's Bambara!

Learning a new, exotic language has definitely been one of the most rewarding and challenging parts of my experience here.

Making a House!

It's now the dry season in Kissa, so there's no farming work to be done.  People do spend a lot more time chatting and relaxing, but they also take advantage of this lul in farm work to build and repair their houses.

So, to build a house, the first thing you do is go to the local mudhole:

There, you make mud bricks, which are left in the sun to dry out and harden.

The bricks are stacked into walls, which are then covered by a different type of mud, then smoothed out.  That is then painted using different dyes.

Here is a donkey cart bringing in some mud.  Everything in the construction of the house is made from different types of earth: the bricks, the mortar, the coating and even the different paints.  People have to pay attention to exactly what proportion of water, sand and clay they use in all of the different building materials, in order for the building to last.

The roof frames are made out of wood, traditionally covered with dried grasses.

Nowadays, though, some people have roofs from sheet metal.  If you look in the background, you can see that the roof behind them is made from thatch.

And thats how you make a hut!  It's usually something the whole community comes together to do.  I.e., you help 20 people build their houses, and then, when you want to build you house, you'll have 20 helpers.  They last around 10 - 20 years, although the thatch does need to be replaced more frequently.

What's your house made out of?