It's the Holiday Season!

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I haven't blogged in awhile, partly because so much has been going on and it's really quite hard to keep this up. However, I will try to give a rundown of life since the last time I posted.

After Tabaski, I spent Thanksgiving at the American Ambassador's home. It was really nice to get a little taste of home. There was tons of turkey, stuffing, green beans, salad and pumkin pies with real whip cream! And after our meal, my table went round-robin and said what we were thankful for. This is the same tradition that my family has, so it was really nice to share this among my new friends.

A week after Thanksgiving, I had one week in village and then I was off for my In-Service Training for two-weeks. The IST was very informative, but overwhelming because we received all the tools we could possibly need to start our respective projects. For my village, I want to create a library, a literacy center, organize a "Career Day" and coordinate a mentorship program. I'm also helping the cyber cafe in my town generate more revenue through better advertisement. Do I feel confident enough to successfully start these projects now that I'm done with IST?........A weak "Yes," but only because my language is still shaky. Stronger language skills will come with time, but everyone in village says that I'm very courageous, so I feel confident in knowing that they believe in me.

So, after training, I arrived home and my family told me that there were three new baby girls born while I was gone! I left knowing that Adama was pregnant. However, I wasn't sure for a long time. When I left she was obviously showing, but I didn't know she was ready to pop any day now! And then this other woman in our concession had twin baby girls on the same day that Adama had hers! Ahhhh! This can only happen in Mali! So, on Christmas Day, they're going to have a baptism of the babies and I'm not going to be there because I'm celebrating Christmas in Bamako :(

I got into Bamako on Christmas Eve and I had reserved a massage appointment at the spa. It was my first full body massage and it was AMAZING and there was ice cream! Then that night, me and some other volunteers made cheese and broccoli soup and bread and began planning our meal for Christmas day. We made bacon, potato, and corn chowder, sausage, green beans, stuffing, wheat berry salad with lettuce, berries, apples, and feta cheese, baked apple crisp and chocolate lava cake with whip cream. I gotta say, it's one of the best Christmas meals I'd ever had! We ended the night with a showing of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade and "Elf."For a little while, I felt like I was back in America.

Merry Christmas to everyone! I love and miss you alllllll!

New Baby

One of my host moms, Rokia, finally had her baby! I've been waiting for this moment, since forever! I've made jokes about it and they joked with me whenever Rokia went to Bamako to see the doctor. We've had some good times and now the baby girl is here!

She's so cute and small, but there's no name to call her yet, because in Muslim tradition, the family waits 7 days until they name the child. How do people receive new borns? Well, when people came to visit, they gave many blessings to the family and then proceeded to call the baby ugly and all sorts of other things that I'm sure were bad. I found out later, that it's tradition to curse the newborn to keep bad spirits away.

The baby also wears a string bracelet, and beads around its neck and waist. These are also worn to keep bad spirits away. So, I joined in the fun and called the baby really ugly, while whispering, in English, in the babes ear how cute she really is.

Western Relationships Seen Through Malian Eyes

Me and this guy, Kone were discussing why so many women are not married. This conversation started because he expressed his intentions to write my parents to ask for my hand in marriage. I told him I would never marry him because: 1. He's Muslim and 2. He's already married and I refuse to be his second wife. He didn't accept that because he said that in his eyes, I'm already married......to him. Okaaaaay, but no.

So, then he asked me how many marriage proposals I had in America. Hahaha, zero, but I already have nine, in Mali. Of course, he followed this question with a why-question and I found myself having the same conversation I've had among my American friends: why are there so many single (Black) women?

However, this time, I got an outsider perspective on the matter. He said that it is difficult to get married in Europe and America because men must make a lot of preparations before marriage. In Mali, you don't need a lot of means to get married because the family takes care of mostly everything. Most men continue to live with their parents and the price of living is very little here, so they don't need to continually work. You can survive on very little and so they can also marry up to four wives and be able to care for all of them.

He also told me that he has a lot of friends who are married to Western women. I found that very interesting and I asked if I could meet these couples. He continued to say that these Western women come and visit every 3 months, but continue to work in their country. I was like, "Huh?" He said that these men had already taken wives that their parents have given them and the Western women refuse to live with multiple wives, so they just visit. So, it's like these women have double lives, one in the "real world" and then a fantasy one where they are married to an African man that they visit on holiday. Why did they "marry" these men? Because it's too hard to marry in their country.

Family

There's this guy, Vieux who's been asking me to come over at night to chat. He lives right across the street and my family is cousin to his. So, in my mind, I saw nothing wrong with going over to chat, but I know that there are rules here, so I asked my Adama about it. I asked her what she thought about Vieux and if it is okay to go over to house and chat with him at night. She said that Vieux is a good guy and he's nice, but at night all Malian men are bad! I found this hilarious, but I knew she was not kidding. She told me that if he wanted to chat with me then, he should come over here because my family can protect me.

As much as I hated being treated like a child, I knew she was saying this out of love and this was the first time she referred to me as family! I mean, I've always referred to them as my family because they take care of me, but to hear that I'm a part of them, it made me feel all gushy inside.

Tabaski

For three days, my famiily feasted on ram to celebrate the story of Abraham's will to sacrafice his son, Isaac. It is quite beautiful how they commerorate this day. My family bought four rams: one for the grandpa, grandma, and the two sons. They sacraficed these animals for each elder's life just as Abraham did.

The men skinned, gutted and cut up the meat, while the women prepared the meat and sides. Cooking the meat took all morning and into the afternoon. Everything smelled and tasted so delicious! We had grilled and boiled meat with rice and vegetables one day, and boiled meat and zame the second and third day.

Then the grandfather laid out the skins of the rams to dry. Once they're dry, they will be used as prayer mats for each of them. It's quite poetic how they kneel down on these mats to remember how God relieved Abraham of sacraficing his only son, Isaac. So, this is where I get confused and ask, why do Muslims celebrate this holiday?

Abraham did have another son named, Ishmael, by his bondswoman, Hagar. Ishmael was the son who fathered the nation of Islam, not Isaac. Ishmael was the first born of Abraham, not Isaac, however God did not ask Abraham to offer Ishmael. Could it be because Isaac's blood was more precious, therefore a greater sacrafice? Hmmmmm. Isaac, fathered the Jewish nation and ultimately, Jesus Christ, who is the Rock of Christianity. Sooooo, why is this holiday celebrated among Muslims? Why are they celebrating Abraham's will to offer Isaac? Why don't the Jews and/or Christians celebrate it?

Today was one of the most exciting "work" days of my time here in Mali.

1. I didn't have just bread for breakfast! I had meat, onions, tomatoes and fries in a sandwich!
2. Yayi, her father, ex-bf and her host brother came to visit and give me some Laughing Cow Cheese!
3. I went to the High School and I proposed my first idea of change, in French and it was well received!

I'll expand on number 3. During my time at the high school, I have learned that the students have a choice on which subjects they wish to focus on. There is a Literature focus, Human Sciences, Mathematics and Biology focus. Because I focused on the sciences, I sat in on a biology class today and there were only five students in class. I asked the teacher, what the total number of students are in the class, and he said, eight. I wasn't surprised because from what I've seen and heard, the students don't have very good study skills and they can't express themselves very well in French. So, how can they understand and express complicated sciences in French? This is what teachers have said to me and it's very disheartening to see such a low number of students in the sciences.

So, after class, I asked the biology teacher and the administrator, "Why are there so few in the math and science classes? How many students were in the classes last year? How many of those passed the Bacculaurate (BAC)? Do they know why the others did not pass? Have they asked those, in the sciences, what motivated them to choose these courses?" And they responded that the maths and sciences are difficult and the students want to pass the BAC, so they choose the easier subjects. They said that there were 10 biology students last year, and only five of them passed. And they stated that the reason some have chosen math or science and stuck with it is because they know someone in those fields or their teachers have told them about "Doctors Without Borders" or other NGO programs.

After hearing out their reasons, I asked them what they would think about having health, law, engineering and education professionals coming to talk to the students about the paths that they took to become successful. I told them about my school experience and how having successful people in their respective fields come and talk about their work, helped motivate me and others to work hard in school. The administrator had never heard of such a thing ever being done in Mali. He thought that it was a very good idea and he would like to see it happen!

I already know Moussa, the pharmacist, would be down and maybe we could start a summer mentorship program with professionals here in my town or others nearby! I'm really excited to see what the elementary and middle schools think about my idea.

ABC's

Today was a very long day. I woke up at 6:15 to go spend the day at the high school and attend some classes. I observed a couple english classes and a math class, because those are two languages I can understand without translation. The english teacher is very open to me correcting him in class, which I wasn't too comfortable with at first, but he insisted. It's really difficult to speak english in a country where there are hardly any native english speakers, so the teacher is very happy to have me visit.

Later today, my little sister, Boyo, who reminds me of my real little sister, Alyse!, asked me to help her with her ABC's. We've been working on the alphabet for four days now, and tonight, we had a big breakthrough! After having her recite and copy the alphabet several times, I tested her on her memory and had her say each letter as she wrote them and I had tears welling in my eyes as she was doing so. She learned how to say, read and write the alphabet and I helped her!
One thing that I've noticed in the schools here is that the teachers don't have any patience with the kids. This is because there are so many students in the classrooms. It's very tiring to teach, and I've heard all the teachers say that the students are lazy and they have weak minds. The students aren't stupid, but they have to fight against so many other things. In the classroom, they have to battle against 70-80 other students. At home, they have to do chores and deal with other distractions and they're lucky if they have electricity to do their homework at night. There are so many things not conducive to learning, that it makes my head hurt to think of them all.