Being Men in Mali

“Another man is just the façade of another you.” That, more or less, is what our friend Samassekou told us as we took tea in Sikoro, reflecting on a weekend full of cross-cultural laughs. After going out with the peer educators as usual on Saturday morning, we were invited to another “balani,” or block party, up on the plateau of Sikoro. In the midst of a cluster of mud brick houses, perched high above Bamako, music blared out of huge amps and a DJ pumped up the crowd. We set up camp with a couple of the peer-educators about fifty yards away from the dance circle, where we periodically retreated to take tea in between bouts of dancing. I was charged with the extensive ritual of making the tea, and spilled about half the tea pot in the process. Meanwhile, Lauren won her place in Sikoro’s dancing hall-of-fame, taking on three men in a dance-off in front of dozens of avid watchers. Ever since, we’ve been greeted by quite a few strangers as the “dancing toubabous!” Toubabou’s may not be able to dance the Malian jig, but they can, we proved, dance in their own way.

On Sunday, after a morning of taking surveys, we accompanied Samassekou and Ablo to a Malian wedding reception. We were surprised to find ourselves on a rooftop surrounded by seated men. “Where are the women?” we asked. The men pointed down to a gathering the next block over, where we could make out a large group of women dancing to live Malian music. We became very self-conscious and asked why the men’s and women’s parties were separated. The men shrugged. They said both groups just seemed to prefer it that way. But what about the groom, we asked. Didn’t he want to be with his bride? It turns out a bride in Mali does not even attend her own wedding reception! Rather, she must hide her face from the public for a full week before emerging as a married woman. Which brings me to another realization – our entire time in Mali, we have been treated like men. Sitting at the men’s grains, joining the men’s marriage party, and looking forward to careers without childbearing in the near future, we have much more in common with the men here than the women. Our friend told us one day that women here need a man to help them make decisions, but we (Lauren and I) were different, we were on a “another level.” So you think we were just born that way? we challenged. But I’ll save my tirade on gender norms for another day.

Later that day we sat for hours drinking tea (which I successfully made this time) on the Plateau overlooking Bamako. We laughed about our differences. Here, for example, it is rude to pass someone in the street without going through the extensive Malian greeting. But when it comes to saying goodbye, Malians tend to just up and leave without warning. We explained to Ablo and Sam how surprised we were when, during our first week, they had left our house so abruptly. Had we done something to insult them? We had racked our brains and even asked Karamoko about it. It turns out that the extensive process of leaving that we are used to (checking the watch, rattling car keys, explaining apologetically that one has to get back because of such and such, and then continuing to talk for 15 minutes on the way to the door) is just NOT the norm in Mali. Case in point: Mali’s lengthy hello’s are simply substituted for Americans’ lengthy goodbye’s.

On the work-front, things are moving right along. Last week we attended a training session organized by Group Pivot, the national health education organization, in conjunction with PNLT, the national tuberculosis program. It turns out that GAIA is somewhat ahead of the game with TB peer-education, and we presented the TB-Bolo education model (literally “TB hand”), which uses the five fingers of the hand as a mnemonic of important TB-related messages. The NGO representatives at the meeting expressed great interest in borrowing our model - our peer-educators may even be summoned to teach other educators how to use it!

We are almost done with our surveys, which evaluate baseline knowledge of TB in the community as well as the efficacy of the TB-Bolo education program. Aside from that, our other main project is an effort to streamline TB detection in Sikoro. We have found that though tuberculosis treatment is “free” in Mali and available at the local level, there are substantial hidden costs to initiating that treatment. A patient who suspects himself of tuberculosis must first have the means to see a doctor at the local health center, and then must make three trips to the referral center in order to undergo TB diagnostics and start on treatment. TB-Bolo has worked to break the first barrier by minimizing the cost of a visit at the local health center for TB suspects, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many patients who get referred to the hospital for TB tests are “perdues de vue” – lost from sight. Even those who do make it to the referral center are sometimes turned down, because the lab there is at full capacity. So we are now trying to bring TB diagnostics to the local level, in order to save patients those three trips, and keep possible TB cases from falling through the cracks. After visiting personnel at all rungs of the healthcare ladder, we have found a wide consensus that sputum analysis for TB detection should be brought to the Sikoro health clinic. Today, we got the head of the national tuberculosis program on board. Once the lab is furnished with a microscope, we are told, the service can start to happen in a matter of weeks!

Sadly, in a matter of weeks (one week, to be exact), we will no longer be here to see the outcome. The end is creeping up way too fast! I have grown to love this landlocked little country. The only complaint I have is the itch of mosquito bites on my ankles. And the marriage proposals, annoying as ever. Count of proposals: Lauren – 4, Julie – 4. Latest one was a police man. Thank you Sophie, our adoptive mother, for fighting off the suitors!

K’an b’u fo.

Julie

Things I do to make my mother worry

Sophie buying quite hot bread

At the artisans market
I have adopted recently the rather bad habit of sitting outside at night to working on my computer. This being winter in Mali (which doesn't mean it is necessarily cool, today it hit 90 degrees F, but that every so often a monsoon rain comes through) there are a lot of mosquitoes, which means I have a lot of mosquito bites. Now if I were a sensible person I would go inside and so avoid risking getting Malaria from these mosquitoes. Yet it is so beautiful outside and mosquitoes are apart of life here. It is as if, as Julie said this afternoon: we finally feel settled here. Now entering our fourth week in Mali, life has taken on a certain ebb and flow that we have become accustomed to.

That is not to say that we have completely gotten in the grove. Sunday night, we noticed that something was being set up at the 'hidden football field' just up the road. I initially thought it was a wedding of someone quite important (Sunday=day of marriages, and there are a lot of marriages!). So Julie and I ventured over to check it out in tang tops and jeans. We start walking up the street and soon Julie says to me: "Lauren we need to turn back. All the women are veiled here." Now though Mali is 90% Muslim, most women walk around without wearing a veil. We run back home, throw some tiny scarves onto our head (I am a little out of practice with tying a veil and my scarf was too thin, so the bun of my hair was sticking out, talk about awkward) and venture out again.

As it turns out, Sunday was the celebration of the day that Mohamed ascended into the sky. Julie and I join the crowd that is amassing toward the stadium. There are street vendors of prayer beads, prayer rugs and verses from the Koran. We file forward, toward the woman's entrance (men and women had separate entrances and also separate places to pray within the stadium). At the threshold I hesitate for a moment, thinking what am I getting myself into. Several women, as if seeing my fear, beckoning us foreword, saying 'you are welcome' in Bambara.

We enter. The football field is already full of people who must have been sitting there for hours. The men are so far away I can hardly see them (I was a little too shaken up to start a feminist tirade about how there is no such thing as 'separate but equal'). Julie and I sit down at the back, trying to be as discrete as possible. I am hyper-aware of the fact that my hair is showing in the back and that my scarf does not really count as a veil. The women around us seemed quite frankly to be accepting of the two semi-veiled white girls who just sat down, one laid out a rug for us to sit on.

Then the service began. At first I thought this was something similar to an Easter Sunday Mass, something that happened in every cartier of Bamako. It was only later I was told that we were hearing the head Prophet of Mali speak: Idira. The sermon was long, I mean I haven't sat through church service recently, but this could not help but remind me of a puritanical sermon that goes on the whole day. We came in at about 10pm and left around 1am, at which point the service was still going strong. Later, we were told that the service probably went to about 3am. The head preacher would speak a line or phrase (in Bambara, so I couldn’t understand) and a second speak would cry back. It almost put me in a trance, the two voices, and the dirt field full of sitting people.

Typically, I try to avoid talking about religion with Malians. People seem not to care if you a Christian or Muslim or what not, as long as you are something: which poses problems for me, the agnostic. Tonton (the doctor at the CSCOM) asked me the other day if I was Catholic. I should have said yes, just to play it off, but instead I stutter and said, "no I'm Christian" (which is in itself a lie). Tonton looked at me and said "Just like that, just Christian?" I felt like I was looking respect in his eyes. "You should try Islam," he said, "it is a very good religion."

My mother will probably cry in anguish when she reads that.

Perhaps there are some things that I can never understand or become a part of in Mali. Last week, Julie and I had a long discussion with one of our peer-educators about excision (aka. female circumcision). I have never actually had someone sit down with me and argue for the benefits of female circumcision. It is so strange because I respect him so much and his opinion and yet I disagree so strongly with him so strongly. I can't even say that 'we agree to disagree,' that female circumcision is an important part of culture and society in Mali. I just wanted to look him in the eye and say "Can't you see that you’re wrong! Can't you see what you believe is hurting and subjugating to women!" But you can't just do that, so we debated, and he felt just as strongly as I did, but in the opposite direction.

Disagree to disagree then, on this.

Let's Dance

Long time no blog, apologies! I could say it is because work has picked up, since we are now in the full swing of surveying. Maybe it is also a sign of our growing social life, as we visit and get visited by more people in the area. But it is mostly a sign that I’ve succumbed to Mali time, the heat of the day dictating when I can work and when I must sit on my bum and do absolutely nothing, not even blog. Those times of day are reserved for napping, sipping tea, or just listening.

Some quick updates:

- We have become the groupies of a bunch of Malian musicians. Our “in” is named Mamadou, a member of Habib Koite’s world-famous band, who happens to be very close friends with Sophie. Madou is one of the best tama (or “talking drum") players in the world, and his entourage is full of young musical talent. We hang out in little nightspots that are the equivalents of smoky jazz clubs but with Malian music instead. The music is way over my head, but I love it.

- The other night we accompanied Madou to a sort of block party in the neighborhood he grew up in. Madou set up a DJ system complete with amps and a mic, and at least fifty children of all ages gathered. It’s amazing how music can get these kids going! Dancing ensued, by age group…Lauren and I joined the older girls group, and Lauren wowed the crowd with her sick dance moves. But no moves were quite as impressive as those of a young girl and boy, neither of which could be older than ten, who broke it down in a dance-off at the end of the night. Beyonce could learn a thing or two!


- We started shadowing TB rounds in Mali’s biggest hospital, called Point G. Complete with white-coats and face masks, we toured the TB ward and listened to the medical team’s debates about treatment regimes for their patients. The hospital’s campus, perched on a steep hill overlooking Bamako, has some resemblance to Stanford University, very open and flowery. However, the world inside the wards is much more dismal. Even in Mali’s leading medical institution, tree branches are tied to the hospital beds to hang up mosquito nets, and a single aspirator is shared among several hospital buildings. The TB rounds last Tuesday were ended prematurely when a storm hit and rain started slapping down the hallways. Moving from one patient’s room to the next, we thought the wind was going to carry us off the hill!

Now for some Lessons Learned in Mali:
o Don’t give your phone number to friendly men. Lauren has been our guinea pig, having shared her number with quite a few individuals during her few days of owning a phone. Lauren has now grown accustomed to getting about 10 calls a day from EACH of her 4 doting men.
o Don’t use bug spray at mid-day. It may keep the mosquitoes away but – believe it or not – flies LOVE IT. Yesterday, when I was attacked by flies shortly after my spraying, we conducted a little experiment. We sprayed a nearby wall with bug-spray. Sure enough, the flies zoomed to the wall like magnets, and I’m talking significant numbers here. I guess poison for some is candy for others.
o Don’t eat, or touch people, with your left hand. It’s known to be the one you wipe with (here where the concept of TP is somewhat bizarre)
o Don’t give anything to kids unless you have that same thing for all of them. As Lauren and I were walking to the CSCOM the other day, I took some pictures with some smiley kids, and gave them some of my water to drink. I told them they could keep the bottle…but in their eyes I told this one guy that HE could keep the bottle. For the next two kilometers, these kids were on our tails, asking “ou est MON cadeau” (where is MY present?) By the time we reached the health clinic, we thought we had lost them, and began our meeting in the safety of a closed office with one of the doctors there. But about half-way through the meeting, the same kids were reaching in through the window shouting “Mamou!” (my Malian name), and one even came in the door from the other side, not letting up until the doctor scolded them in Bambara. I felt awful and humiliated. Lesson learned.

Best recipe yet in Mali: Sophie's crepes with caramelized mangoes. To die for.

-Mamou

N be bilenman kanu

The places inbetween

 Blo and his family
 Looking down from Ngomi into Sikoro

I had the great honor of working with someone today who deserves the highest of praises. Though I may have met several prestigious people who control health policy and sit in nice leather chairs through Annie, though each of these men and women are smart and dedicated to their work, none of them has impressed me more than Blo. Blo is a peer-educator for GAIA’s TB Bolo program and a Malian equivalent of a Nurse practitioner and he really rocks the boat.

He met us as 7:30am at the local clinic (the CSCOM), after having spent the night on call at the local hospital (the CSREF) and the day before that giving out vaccinations. He then offered to walk with us up to his village Ngomi instead of driving so that we could see the scenery. And what a scenery it was! We started walking out of the valley, up the hills behind Bamako. I must admit, but I did not think that Mali was going to be this green! We walk up into the hills, over one of Bamako’s trash repositories (why the dump is upstream of Sikoro I do not know) toward Ngomi—the last ‘Cartier’ (i.e. district) of Sikoro.

Once above, our, or rather Blo’s work began. He was doing a special one-on-one TB Bolo outing with us. He proceeded to bring us around to all the TB houses and suspected TB houses in the village. I just can’t sing Blo’s praises enough, and not to sound too much like a Kristof column, he and one other woman were this village’s only direct link to medicine as we know it. He knew each of the houses; he knew everyone and took care of them.

When we visited one old woman with Blo, I nearly lost it and broke down in tears. Well that’s not true, in retelling her story I nearly lost it and broke down in tears. She had been given a ticket by Blo to go down to the CSCOM for a TB test after coughing for years. Since she couldn’t afford the 450 CFA round trip on the public-transport (about 1$) she decided to walk to the clinic. On the way, she got so tired and couldn’t stop coughing that she nearly died on the side of the road. Since Blo was not around, she had a traditional healer come and help her back up to Ngomi.

           

            We all talk about access to care issues, but that adds a whole new level to the conversation.

 

            Despite that though, there was still hope. Blo gave her another ticket, and said that this time he would be the one to take her down on his motorcycle to the local clinic for testing. He was so calm and self-assured and just well caring. He told us later that in every action you do, do it with courage—and I must say he follows his own advice.

            Then we began the descent back to Sikoro, and what a descent it was. We stepped into a Sotrama—think an old VW bus with the interior carved out—and held on .  My first impression of being in a Sotrama was that I was going to die. It was a bit like being on a make-shift roller coaster at summer fairs, except there were no seat belts, and it was real. With each second that passed coming down the hill I remained amazed that the back half hadn’t fallen off yet.

           

            Back in town though, we walked. We walk a lot here, though Malians don’t and think we are kind of weird for walking. Besides the fact that we don’t have a car/ motorcycle/bike to get around in and we don’t feel like emptying our pockets for taxicabs for each instant, we walk because we feel so much more ‘in it.’ There are so many interactions you can just miss by driving. Today, for example, in walking home we just said hello to two women on the side of the road. It turns out that the two women are Griots and the next thing we know they started singing us a song of welcome!

 

Kambe,

 

Fatimata (Lauren) 

Grains, rains, etc

A few simple phrases can open up a new world in Mali. Today, Lauren and I had our first official Bambara lesson, with a charming old Peace Corps teacher named Doudou. Lesson #1 was devoted to greetings, and we were told that if we did not greet people as we passed, bad things would befall us. Note: a greeting in Mali does not consist of a simple “hello, how are you” – it is also followed with “how is your family, how is your brother, how is your mother, how is your second cousin once-removed.” Suffice it to say, the walk home from our lesson was somewhat longer than Lauren and I expected. With every group we passed, from mango venders to soccer players, our simple “Aw ni wula,” or good afternoon, unleashed a torrent of (albeit disjointed) conversation.

I will admit, some aspects of the greeting ritual may just be a formality (the mango vendor probably did not really care about my second cousin once-removed.) But at the same time, I think the ritual is a good indication of the Malian community dynamic. There is so much emphasis on neighbors checking up on neighbors, friends checking up on friends. It is no wonder that, even in one of the poorest countries of the world, the cell-phone business is thriving, since communication is key. Another ritual is even more telling: every night before dinner, groups of about 10-20 men assemble by age for the “grain”, a.k.a tea time. They slowly make the tea over a small stove-like apparatus the size of a coffee-maker, serving out portions one-by one in a shot glass, and passing it around the circle. Women sometimes join, so Lauren and I had the opportunity to attend a couple of these “grains.” We asked why there were so many parts to the process, and why they served the tea in such small quantities, and only served the glasses one-by-one (very un-Starbucks-like). The Malians simply responded, the longer the process the better, because there is more time to chat.

Other news, here goes bullet form…

-We briefly attended a wedding this weekend. And I mean BRIEFLY. On Sunday afternoon we heard music and drums from right behind our house and decided to wander towards the source. Sure enough, it was a traditional Malian wedding, and all of the women (this was the women-only party) were decked out in glamorous dresses. Lauren and I got ushered into the tent, and all of a sudden this lady gripped our arms and dragged us into the middle of the dance circle. Not knowing how exactly to dance to Malian music, we tried our best (translation- we humiliated ourselves), and within seconds a whole crowd of children were imitating our every move. After a few fateful minutes of this, the same lady dragged us out of the circle, and calmly ordered us, “maintenant, sortez” (now leave). Oops?

-Barack Obama is everywhere. He is on printed on Malian pagnes (women’s clothing), his picture is sold by street vendors, and he is stored on every Malian cell-phone that I have seen so far. We also ran into Obama the other day, in our neighbors house. An EXACT look-alike. He told us he was tired of people telling him that, and didn’t think there was any resemblance, but he did have three pictures of Obama stored on his cell-phone so that we could see for ourselves. World News Headlines: Barack’s twin brother found in Sikoro, Mali. Pictured right.

-We met the peer-educators this weekend, and accompanied them on a TB-Bolo excursion. We all met on Saturday morning at Mme Niallo’s house, who is “la vielle” (the old one) of the group. Though hard to keep up with the peer educators’ rapid chatting, we hit it off before long, and joined the peer educators in a hike through the slums up to a neighborhood perched up on a red rock plateau. We then each followed a peer educator into people’s households to observe the education session. The dynamic was much different from what you’d expect from a door-to-door salesman in the States: the peer educator walked in unannounced, and sometimes before even saying a word, he or she would be offered a chair and possibly a drink. Usually the head mother of the household would offer these in the midst of a flurry of other activities: stirring a pot of stew on the fire, tying a baby to her back, scolding her children and shooing a dog away. Then the peer educator would explain the premise of the program, teach a few simple lessons about tuberculosis, and ask if anyone in the house was showing symptoms. If yes, they were given discount tickets to the local health center. On Monday morning, when we went to the health center as it opened, it was very heartening to see several people arrive with TB-Bolo tickets in their hands!

-We also attended a Here Bolo education session, about HIV, which is done at the “grain.” It was impressive to see 20 young men surrounding the teapot, keenly listening to the educator and asking questions. Even more impressive when a wooden penis appeared upon request of a demonstration of condom application!

-The rains have come. Their arrivals are always announced well in advance. Wind, then lightning, then thunder, then BANG, it’s pouring, and all of Mali seems to rattle. The rain is followed by a blissful coolness. It’s wonderful.


Mosquito-bite count: Lauren has 19. She says it’s because she’s so sweet. I’m too lazy to count mine but I do believe she is beating me.

Picture time!

Here are a couple of pixs that Annie and I have taken over the past couple of days! 
  

Here's as Annie says a "Rasta"guy. He tried to pick me up by asking me if I wanted to "do abb exercises" with him. I must admit that was the first time I've gotten that one--though it was quite endearing. And below we have buying bread

 Now, though it may be a little trite, I'm still a fan of the good old black and white. These two women sell mangoes in "le hippodrome" quite close to our house. The woman on the left has the last name of Traore. That is rather unfortunate for Julie, as Julie's last name is Koné. The Kone's and Traore's are joking cousins, so upon hearing Julie's last name, they started calling her an 'eater of beans.' Apparently joking cousins were once feuding families at one time, but now--as a means to joke around/keep the peace--they make fun of each other. So Julie is an eater of beans. She needs to figure out what the comeback is for the Traore's soon!

The Baptisms of Julie and Lauren

Ok so, I must admit, that in spite the title of this blog, the Converse didn't make it too far in Mali. The ridiculous feeling of wearing chuck's with a past-the-knee skirt and the heat of the day made me to leave ‘em behind and adopt something a little more practical--which is fairly emblematic of Julie’s and my first few days in Mali. Though all of our research for the previous month has proved useful, being here on the ground we have learned how much there is to learn. As Confucius said: "to know is to know that you know nothing, that is true knowledge.” Now I certainly don’t have true knowledge, but instead that I am just realizing how little I know about the people and how they live in Mali, so how can I profess to know any answers?

In Bambara there is a saying "Donni donni” which means little by little, and that is how Julie and I are beginning to grasp where we are.

Today, we had our first and much-anticipated meeting with the peer educators. They are the hinge that will make or break both the general survey on TB and the evaluation of the program of TB Bolo. Of all the rendezvous we have had this week, this is the one I have been looking forward to the most. My heart jumped a bit when two women peer-educators came in 45 minutes early and sat down with us. They were dressed immaculately, just as it seems all Malians dress immaculately—the women in panges of exquisite fabrics with intricate lacings, the men in collared shirts—it makes me feel always a little under-dressed. It puts the way we dress in the States to shame.

These women became our first true Bambara teachers, they sat us down, and began to teach us proper ways of saying hello. In Mali this can be quite an extensive conversation, far surpassing the normal ‘hey what’s up’ I’m used to. After a few laughs, Julie and I started to get the swing of things, kind of.

With the meeting, the peer educators, after some review, thankfully seemed in accord with our project. They also agreed to bring us out this weekend so that we could actually watch them in action both in Here Bolo (the HIV peer education program) and in TB Bolo.

What is perhaps most striking to me is how little my academic knowledge is applicable here. I can sit down with someone and have an extended conversation about structural adjustment programs or how Mali has such a low TB case-detection rate—but on the level of dealing with people, people who are sick, it is so much more than statistics or numbers. Perhaps that is what we sometimes forget when we plan surveys, stage interventions, or even write policy recommendations for a Political Science class: that this might just be an idea for us, but these ideas can have profound consequences on people’s lives. What gives us the right to have such power over people?

On a lighter note, Julie and I have both been given Bambara names, multiple names actually by multiple people. I actually completely forgot my first two names, which I think is a bad sign… but lets hope not. We were originally names by Dr. Tonton at the clinic we are working at (Tonton is his nickname, it means uncle in Bambara), I blame jetlag for me not remembering this one. Julie though, was given the name Salimata Koné.

Next, the woman who sold us plantains in the market named us. The market itself is hidden between two buildings, I missed it the first five times I went past. But in this little market holds a world all to itself, with tomatoes, potatoes, fish heads, and completed by a pange cloth picturing Barak Obama. After having learned just a few simple phrases, Julie and I managed to strike up a conversation that ended up with us being named—again—and me forgetting my name—again.

Back at the house, our Bambara lesson continued, Julie had I would say about a half hour long conversation with Salif about the word ‘you are welcome,’ only to realize, after much confusion, miming and play acting that you just repeat ‘thank you’ in Bambara to say ‘your welcome.’

Donni Donni

We were thankfully given names for a third time. My name is Fatimata and this one is sticking to me.

I guess these first few days have been full of attempts, for example on the first night here, I attempted to light the stove, only to use up 13 matches in the process… I swear I’ve improved in leaps and bounds since then!

Cumulative mosquito bite count: 5 ( Julie 3, Lauren 2)

N’taara

-Lauren