That’s the Way It is

Yesterday I was supposed to have a language lesson when my tutor canceled on me. His sister had just passed away and he was on his way to Bamako. Today I came back to my house and in my sink I had let a pot soak in some water only to find a dead lizard floating inside. Unfortunately, a recurring theme here in Mali is “life and death.” Even in my escape, whether it’s watching movies or reading books there seems to be this morbid fascination with what happens after we die. Most people may feel they live lives of consequence but as a well-educated young man I can not claim to be as helpless as the countless others I meet on a daily basis. For many here they don’t have a choice but to do what they do; many Malians are resigned to the fact that’s just the way it is, so they keep on keep on until they can’t anymore. Many Malians ask me where I came from and find it hard to comprehend why I came. Some times I really feel this is exactly what I should be doing and that I’m making a positive difference. But, other times I just miss parts of my former life: driving my car, hanging out with friends, being cold, etc. This is the latter.

After serving two years in Mali as a Peace Corps volunteer no doubt I’ll be leaving as a different person. I’ll probably end up more Malian than American (for better or worse). But when I go back to America my life will return “back to normal”, or will it? After living in a place like Mali, what will seem “normal” to me? Surely this experience has ruined all hopes of ever going back to work for some heartless corporation grinding out a 9-5. Then again, the alternative, working for an aid organization for the rest of my life doesn’t sound too appealing either. There’s a part of me that just wants to say forget it (I would actually say something else….), move to some so-called “developing” country and just get rich, or die trying. When I leave what will happen to the people I’m working with? Do things ever change? Can we change? Can things really ever change in Africa, or should we just realize that no matter what we do nothing WILL change because poverty is not some problem that can be solved by politicians or celebrities or economists? I don’t know…..

We look at poverty like it’s some sort of illness, a disease that plagues all of Africa. So we come in and try and dole out our medicine as best we can. But maybe poverty isn’t a disease at all. Some say that darkness is the absence of light. Then isn’t poverty simply the absence of wealth? If only it were easy to convince a bunch of rich people to move to one of the poorest and most unstable places in the world.

I’m leaving for Dakar, aka Africa Light, in a few days for much needed vaca. Hopefully I’ll come back rejuvenated and ready to take on the world once again.

How to End Poverty

So it’s been a while since I last updated my blog. Overall things have pretty much gone back to normal. I spend my days going to hang out with the women of Si Nafa and then the guys at my blacksmith/president of the mobile bank. After that I usually grab a sandwich and then either hang out in town or go back home. I’ve also been busy trying to get this restaurant proposal together. We’ll see how that goes…..

I’ve had a lot of time to catch up on reading books. I finally got through Brothers Karamazov and had a chance to read this book I’ve been dying to read, The Aid Trap by R. Glenn Hubbard (thanks Hee Young!) It really seems like he understands the issues. He opposes aid but provides a realistic solution drawing on what has proven successful in the past, The Marshall Plan. After World War II the US was charged with helping reconstruct Europe. America helped by sending over businessmen who helped give loans to businesses in Europe, which helped drag the remains of Europe out of poverty in a relatively short period of time. He offers a similar solution to Africa. Hubbard argues that instead of treating economic development in Africa like charity we need to foster a healthy business environment and doing so is the only way to truly develop Africa and bring people out of poverty.

One of the reasons I feel that aid isn’t working here in Mali is because it just fits into all the worst tendencies for Malians. Typically a successful Malian male will have several wives, tons of children, and lots of relatives who are always hitting them up for money. My language tutor tells me that he can’t go to a village without bringing a bunch of money because his poor relatives not only want the money but they expect it. This is the same line of reasoning for having many children too. I had this conversation today with my homologue’s friend’s wife Fatimata where I explained that in my family it’s just me and my brother. To her it seemed so bizarre because your average Malian will have many children so that when the children grow up they will take care of you as you get old. I guess in America children more or less suck the money out of you and no one really expects to be supported by their children when they get older. But here children are more like investments. So when NGOs come in the village treats them like that rich uncle. They come in on their shiny cars, ask them what they want, buy it for them, then they go back to America (or even worse, France). Let’s say an NGO came in and built a village a school. For the NGO worker he can say that he visited a poor village in Africa, built a school, and it changed his life. But, for the village, how can we be certain that school will be used? What happens when the roof collapses or a wall caves in? Since it didn’t cost the village any money they really don’t have a personal stake in the school and oftentimes they’ll just end up not using the building if something happens. Even worse they’ll just wait for the next NGO to come by and ask them what they want. Then they’ll tell them the roof collapsed on the school and that it needs to be fixed. The rich uncle steps in once again (this time the rich uncle being the NGO) and fixes the roof for them. Instead of trying to improve their lives on their own these villages end up in this vicious cycle of dependency, never being able to truly develop and bring themselves out of poverty. Even the way that people approach training is backwardsLet’s be honest, if we Americans were in the same situation would we act any differently? Such are the consequences of the so-called Aid Trap.

So don’t believe the hype. Don’t listen to Bono and all his bullshit. Don’t listen to any of those celebrities. Most of them are just a bunch of FAGs (RE: Team America World Police). Bono is truly hypocritical when he pleads governments to forgive Africa’s debts while he relocates U2‘s headquarters to evade taxes in Ireland. As Hubbard argues the only way to truly fight poverty is by promoting business which in turns creates a middle class which is the only effective check on government. We need to stop “helping” Africans by just giving them money and start helping Africans “help” themselves. Six months in and already questioning whether or not I’ll make it. In sh’Allah…..

What Happens Next

I’ve spent the past month away from site so it feels great to be back. It’s nice to see that all my stuff is still here and everyone is either doing the same or better than before. I spent the first few weeks of December at training and then went up to Bandiagara where I spent my Christmas hanging out by the pool up there. I then went on a day hike through Dogon Country and then visited Mopti where I investigated the plastic bricks they manufacture up there. I also hung out a little bit in Sevare where I learned (and mastered) the game of world domination, Risk. I came back through Bamako and made my triumphant return to Kita yesterday relatively happy and healthy.

Right away I jumped back into my work and have discussed my restaurant idea with my women’s group. We are very close to submitting our proposal. Meanwhile the women of the cooperative are fired up and ready to go. All we have to do now is finish up the proposal and wait for the funding to come in to start in sh’Allah. The president of my women’s cooperative, Sabou Cisse, is awesome, and always tells me that the hardest part about doing any sort of business in Kita is starting. I am starting to see why. It requires a lot of planning to make sure you get it right the first time. Hopefully we’ll have a building up and ready to serve by early Spring.

Something has changed in me. I can’t quite figure it out but I feel different. I feel much more comfortable with my language skills (thanks Abdoulaye!) and I’m feeling more and more like my old self: abrasive, witty, and right 95% of the time. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta. Thanks to everyone who sent packages! You will never know how much it means for me to receive something to remind me of home, but more than that I appreciate the letters of support. It’s difficult being here but every time I open a package I’m reminded of why I am here and it encourages to stay, at least for another month.

Before I left for training in Bamako I had the chance to work with some people to help their businesses. The president of my women’s cooperative, Sabou, has a son named Yacouba, or Yacou for short. He came to visit his mother but to also develop a massage cream using Si Nafa’s Shea butter as he held onto 250 KG of Shea butter in Bamako. Originally his idea was to crush up eucalyptus leaves and mix it into the butter. Fortunately for him I saw what he was doing and stopped him. I would prefer to extract essential oils from eucalyptus leaves and mint leaves to add to the Shea butter but since we don’t run a very sophisticated operation I suggested we make a sort of eucalyptus mint tea instead so we did. We gathered a bunch of eucalyptus leaves and bought some mint leaves from market and brewed some tea. By adding it to the Shea butter and mixing it in slowly enhanced the Shea butter by making it smell better and when rubbed into skin it gave a nice sheen and tingly feeling (most likely due to the mint). After developing a few other formulas Yacouba decided that my formula was the best and he took it back to Bamako. In the past month he’s sold 100 KG of eucalyptus mint Shea butter massage cream! I’m very proud of him and happy that things have worked out.

Another story is about making peanut clusters. While in Bamako I went with my friend Jeremy to the gas station late at night. He showed me these peanut bars and told me he loves them. I thought to myself, Kita is the peanut capital of Mali, why can’t we make them there? Apparently it’s a Senegalese treat. Anyways one day while at the stage house one of my friends Jess (who I do the radio show with) brought back a bunch of peanuts. Not wanting them to go to waste I decided to try out my idea of bringing peanut bars myself. I shelled the peanuts and roasted them in their skins. After I roasted them I added water, lots of sugar, and some milk powder. After it boiled down a little it achieved this syrupy caramel consistency. I rolled them into balls (as it was easier than making squares) and let them set. I drizzled them with cinnamon powder. The end product was a ball of chewy, sugary, peanutty goodness. I thought this idea could work in Kita. But who could I work with to make these sweet treats? Immediately I thought of Fili Coulibaly.

Fili is the person who helped me find my house during my site visit and someone who is very familiar with Peace Corps and what we do. She is also a merchant who sells beans, rice, and pasta. She speaks Bambara and French and is very intelligent. So I invited her over to the stage house right before I left for training so I could show her how to make peanut clusters. She brought a bag of peanuts and I had the sugar/milk powder. This time around I showed her how to make caramel. Caramel is pretty simple. All you do is heat sugar constantly pushing it towards the center of a thick steel pot until it achieves a light brown color. When it achieves the consistency/color you want take it off the heat and put it in an ice bath to stop it from cooking. Voila caramel! I proceeded to show her how to make it but this time around she roasted the peanuts. I didn’t know how to get the skins off but she figured out a way to skin the peanuts by using a Malian technique. Eureka! Meanwhile I made my syrup/caramel concoction and once we put the two together once again we had our peanut clusters but this time they were crunchy, skinned, and even better. Call it peanut cluster 2.0. We worked out the cost to make the peanut clusters and determined that for every 8 peanut clusters we sell she would make a profit of 150 CFA! She would spend 250 CFA on materials and sell them for 400 CFA. We discussed the price (50 CFA per ball) and her customers (children at school) and then I went off to training. I saw her today and she told me kids love them and who wouldn’t?  They’re salty, sugary, crunchy goodness.  Here’s something else I did…..

After we finished making our first batch of peanut clusters it turns out there was some leftover caramel. We ended up dumping it into a small container where it hardened. I didn’t really know what to do with it so I decided I would try to make caramel popcorn. I took the hunk of hardened caramel and threw it back into the pot. I added water and melted it down. Eventually it became caramel sauce. My friend Dina aka Dizzle made some popcorn and then Voila! Caramel popcorn! Perhaps the first ever in Kita. Needless to say it didn’t last very long with other volunteers in the house. I remembered they sell bags of popcorn at our training center in Bamako and so one day I approached the head of the kitchen, Gordon, with my idea.

I’m not sure how much the kitchen staff gets paid but can’t imagine it to be very much. All of them are very hard working and sacrifice much for our volunteers. One thing they do to supplement their income from Peace Corps is they sell bags of popcorn for 100 CFA per bag. For your average Malians this might be a little expensive but for us volunteers we gobble it up. They might put out a tray full of popcorn in the afternoon and by dinner it’s all gone. So why not add a new product in caramel popcorn? I showed him how to make caramel and caramel sauce. It was the first time I had made real caramel so it took two tries but we eventually got it down. He made some popcorn and we drizzled the sauce on top and mixed it in. He loved it! So we bagged up the rest and put it out for sale. At this point most of the volunteers had left but there were still some people left. I told him to sell each bag for 400 CFA. This is probably an absurdly high price but I figure the demand for popcorn, especially caramel corn, would be high with volunteers so much so that they would still pay 400 CFA for it. I was right. By the end of the day all the bags were gone and he learned first hand the laws of supply and demand. The next day we made some more but this time I had him show his assistant how to make it. It was really cool seeing someone I taught teach someone else how to do something. This time we put it out for 300 CFA as Gordon thought the price was a little high. It didn’t matter. It still ended up selling out. I told him the real trick was selling it when the new batch of volunteers come in. He better watch out. There’s 85 new volunteers coming in.

So it goes. I think ultimately Malians are very resourceful and there are some very intelligent Malians out there. Sometimes if all we can offer is an idea, that’s good enough. No one expects us to save the world (or at least I hope not) but what we can do is help a little bit here and there. Maybe I am the boy at the dike, but maybe if more of us held back the water long enough, then it would be enough. Let’s be real. This world is not going to save itself and God knows the large multinational corporations/organizations are not going to save us either. If this world is to be saved it will be because of many people working independently to make things a little better, not the UN. Let me break it down even further. Ideas purported by assclowns like Jeffrey Sachs (author of books like The End of Poverty and Common Wealth) just don’t work. Is the most efficient way to end poverty using organizations that aren’t working and throw more money at them? If we halve poverty (which is an arbitrary measure) by some arbitrary date (2020 perhaps?) by increasing spending on poverty issues by some arbitrary amount ($150 million) will that solve the real underlying problems? Go back to your cushy air-conditioned castle and think about it some more. If we’re to make a difference it will be by providing better information to people to make decisions for themselves and teaching them things they want to know, not things we want them to know. Sometimes all we can do is do what we can, and then have faith that everything will be alright. One love….

The End of the Beginning

It’s pretty hard to believe but I’ve been in Mali for nearly six months now.  I remember talking to my country director about it and the way he put it was right.  Life here in Mali is like a time warp where each day seems like it lasts forever while the months just fly by.  I’ve reached an interesting point in my language skills as well.  I was talking to some friends on Gmail when I started typing out words in French.  Since they either never took French or completely forgot it they would ask me what I just said.  But the thing is here in Mali when I’m with other volunteers interjecting French into our conversations has become part of our repertoire, n’est-ce pas?  I even threw in some blessings in Bambara for some people!

Now that we’ve been through our in-service training I feel like my service is going to go a lot faster.  I really want to get this restaurant thing off the ground.  If I can help my women’s cooperative build a restaurant I know that they will be successful.  The women I work with aren’t lazy, they just don’t know what to do a lot of the time.  It seems like they’re happiest when they’re working and I suppose that rings true for most Malians.  Shea butter production is a lot of work but because of the different seasons in a year the women may work a few months because that’s all they can do.  By introducing other income-generating activities I hope to give the women of my cooperative work all year-round.  After all, I work with a women’s cooperative that has 30 different villages!  If this is successful (in sh’allah) I hope to get a dairy cooperative going.  We’ll see.

I spent Christmas in Bandiagarra hanging out with some friends.  The power was out so we ended up cooking Christmas dinner in the dark/candles/using our headlamps, watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, then passed out.  It wasn’t quite the Christmas dinner expected but it shouldn’t be a Christmas I’ll soon forget.

So what will 2010 bring?  Every year around this time I try to take a sort of mental inventory and re-evaluate things but this year’s a little different.  I don’t really care anymore.  Screw trying to lose weight (I actually don’t have any more weight to lose even if I wanted to) or taking up some new hobby or those other played out New Year’s resolutions I make for myself but end up doing for only about a month or so.  All I’m going to do is continue to live my life the only way I know how.  This is kindof cheesy but I guess it’s appropriate: clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.  Happy New Year’s everyone!  Here’s to many more.

Day and Nite

an alley in Mopti paved with plastic bricks

unpaved alley in Mopti

The difference between a paved street in Mopti and an unpaved street is like night and day….

The Hourglass Effect

I think that a lot of the problems I see in Africa development-wise is not for lack of funds per se but perhaps it’s because the organizational structure in Mali is shaped like an hourglass. There are many government officials and obviously they carry a lot of clout. It seems like the rest of the country is more or less farmers/commercants. There is a huge gap in the middle where industries and businesses and universities and all that good stuff should be, but there isn’t. In the short run the solution is to give people business ideas that aren’t too much of a stretch but in the long run unless the government/aid organizations/Bill Gates invests in education none of the progress that’s made will ever gain traction.

I Won’t be Home for the Holidays…..

This has been a crazy year. So much has happened it’s hard to just recap everything in one convenient blog post. I guess all I can say is that life is a strange and wondrous thing. We should all live our lives to the fullest because if not, then what are we living for? I’ll be visiting Dogon Country for Christmas and who knows what I’ll do for New Year’s, hopefully something fun. The honeymoon is definitely over but I hope that over the next two years I will have left Mali knowing that I have helped at least a few people, in sh’Allah…. Merry Christmas everyone.

To Try and To Fail

I was so cold this morning I woke up and have since put on my favorite hoodie, sweatpants, and two pairs of socks. The only problem is I checked the temperature and it’s only 78 degrees. Back home I would beg for it to be 78 degrees right now but since I’ve arrived here my body seems to have adapted and so here I am freezing my ass off. These past few months have done much to peel away those masks I donned while I was back in America. Being here sometimes makes me feel like The Mask. When I’m with other Americans I try to be this mild-mannered happy go lucky guy, but when I’m around Africans my personality changes because something inside of me feels that’s what’s necessary in order to get anything done around here.

I feel at home here. For the first time in a really long time I feel like I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ve accumulated enough project ideas to keep me busy for the next two years and then some. My place is comfortable enough for me to live in, I have no problem cooking for myself, and I get along well with my neighbors. My language is getting better although it’s not fully there yet (consequently I’m forgetting a lot of my Korean). I get along really well with my community (I’m getting around to starting to play soccer soon I swear) but still each day is a struggle. No matter how comfortable I get here it will never be like back home. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss family and friends or just being in America. The only thing that keeps me here is knowing I can do more good here than I ever could back home. I have some days where all I think about is how fast I can get on a plane and back to America while some days I feel great because of a good conversation with someone or because people were receptive to an idea. Most days are a mixture of both but every day is a struggle. Because I’m in Mali does it mean I need to live as poorly as the poorest villager? Even the volunteers who are in the villages come in every week or two weeks to hang out because that’s what keeps them sane. One of the things that has kept me sane is receiving packages and looking forward to receiving packages (thanks Mom!). But perhaps the only thing keeping me here helping me do what I do is the love and support of my parents and friends back home.

I would argue that most aid workers only live as uncomfortably as they want to (which usually means working in a developing country but every day going home to a Western-style apartment with as many amenities as they can afford). Look, this is something that people who aren’t here will never understand. We do what we have to do to get by. As much as I wanted to integrate as much as possible at the beginning I’ve reached a point where if I integrate any further I’m just going to end up as lazy and restless as so many other Malians. I can speak the language, I eat the food, I play with the kids, I understand the economics. They have to understand that I’m NOT a Malian and because of that I have something to offer (hopefully).

I don’t know if we ever become experts at this. People in typical corporate jobs will have climbed the ladder over two years but I don’t care if you’ve been here 20 days or 20 years, a person with more experience isn’t necessarily more successful. So much of what we do here is trial and error perhaps the greatest ingredient for success is a willingness to fail. I don’t expect failure but I understand that even if I do everything perfectly things still may not work out as planned and that’s okay. What’s going to happen when the music stops?

Right Round

[tags america, life, mali]

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated but things have been kind of up and down for me. That’s one of the big differences for me between life here and life back in America. I was actually talking about this with one of my friends here, and the way he explained it was you experience a lot of extremes here, many ups and downs, while life back in the States is somewhat more predictable. For example, in a typical week here I would probably have some sort of diarrhea, wonder what I ate, sweat profusely, play with a bunch of really cute kids, have other kids call me chinois while I’m riding my bike, hear about someone’s family member dying while hearing about someone else having a baby, hang out with some volunteers, hang out with some Malians, etc. The whole while I feel like this emotional pendulum at one moment reaching some very high highs (like when I’m playing with some really cute babies) or some very low lows (like when I question what I’m doing here). Although I try to maintain a somewhat “normal” schedule it’s clear my sense of time has become distorted. Back in the States I would always have a good sense of what time it was because so much of American life revolves around this “go go go” mentality so that we’re in perpetual motion. Meanwhile here things are a lot slower and instead of telling you it’s 9:24 AM to me it’s just sogoma. Life will definitely be different for me when I go back, IF I go back.

So how do you define American life? It’s interesting for me because I now come from an outsider’s perspective (this being the longest time I’ve ever been out of the country). America, to me, still represents all that’s possible. America is still a place where anyone can go and be incredibly successful (in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). Right now I’m in a country where each day I have to plan where I’m going to poop because there aren’t toilets everywhere. Even when it comes to holes in the ground the quality of nyegens varies (my nyegen is sweet by the way). In America you walk in to any restaurant and more likely than not the food will not make you sick and you can use a toilet if you need it.

As I start “work” soon I really wonder how things will turn out. I have so many project ideas in my head but I’m not sure if I have the time or the talent to carry them out. In sh’allah! Please keep me in your prayers and keep your checkbooks open (fun projects coming soon!) I have spent the past week stuffing my face and dare I say it, have I gained weight thanks to Tabaski? Tabaski is the celebration here similar to Thanksgiving when Muslims celebrate God sparing Abraham from killing his only son (he sacrificed a ram instead). So every Tabaski countless rams are slaughtered and a big feast is held. Needless to say I’ve spent the past two days eating great food thanks to my homologue and my language tutor. Life doesn’t suck. IST coming soon.

Hope is a Good Thing

Today I had my first radio broadcast. One of my sitemates, Jess, had been pushing me to start doing a radio show. So after pushing it off for seemingly as long as I could I went with Jess to the radio station with my homologue El-Haji last week and we were told that Peace Corps had a slot available every Friday from 10 am to 11 am so we had our first show this morning. I wrote out a script with my language tutor Abass yesterday and picked out some songs with Jess this morning. We got there a bit early but when we sat down they told us they wouldn’t be able to use my iPod to play songs so all the songs we had lined up were useless. Frantically we looked through the cassettes they had there and ended up playing old Madonna songs for half an hour. Luckily I found a decent mixtape with some decent songs from a few years back so we were able to put that on for a little bit. It probably wasn’t the most solid start but all things considered I think it went pretty well. Neither of us really freaked out about talking in Bambara and we were able to play some decent American music (although it wasn’t the songs we really wanted to play).

Something I’ve been thinking about is yet another solution for poverty which I heard about on NPR’s Planet Money podcast. Glenn Hubbard, author of The Aid Trap, suggests a plan which is similar to The Marshall Plan which helped rebuild Europe. In his plan money would be redirected from aid funds being spent now and instead used to support mid-level companies by giving them cheap credit, or “free money.” It’s an interesting plan that seeks to break away from the aid strategy that is being used now because just simply throwing money at the poverty issue hasn’t proved successful. By promoting the growth of specific industries in these impoverished nations you hope for a trickle-down effect which provides jobs to people through industry growth. It’s an interesting solution but it really makes me wonder why Mali is so poor.

I think perhaps the single greatest reason for Mali’s poverty is the lack of emphasis on education. I forget where I read it somewhere but how much a country values education is directly correlated with the amount of development in that country. Take for example India. Over the last 10-20 years India has emerged as a global economic superpower with many skilled laborers. India right now is perhaps one of the largest sources of outsourcing of American jobs. On the other hand if you look at Mali’s track record education is not very important to many Malians. Most Malians speak several different languages (but not very well). It’s hard to focus on education when survival is the main concern.

Another factor to consider for Mali’s poverty is the seasonality of income. Mali is still very much an agricultural economy and therefore live and die by the fruits of their labors. The seasons in Mali include dry season and rainy season (hot season and cold season are both during dry season). During dry season families typically are harvesting fruits and vegetables and are able to afford decent food for the family. During rainy season (also called hungry season) people are typically in the fields all day long and so there is not very much food to go around. Oftentimes the head of a household can’t support his family with just farming and resorts to selling goods or taking on other side jobs to supplement his income. Irregular income forces families to live solely for the short-term by enjoying the food when times are good and scraping by when times are bad. I am hoping through some of my projects I’m able to help the people get organized, have more regular income (through both rainy and dry season), and learn to plan for the future. I see two years as a short time to be here so my emphasis is on short-term projects with an emphasis on knowledge transfer and requiring very little startup capital. Perhaps the most ambitious of my projects is to start a dairy cooperative which will collect milk from surrounding villages and sell it in town. Basically you can buy 1 liter of milk in the villages for 150 CFA while 1 liter of milk in town costs 400-500 CFA. By buying out all the milk from local villages not only do you make a profit (~200 CFA per liter) but you give farmers a better price for their milk than they would normally get. In addition you provide people in town with an invaluable service (last time I tried getting milk we bought the lady out of all her milk at noon) by selling milk all day long. Someday soon I hope to be able to walk into town, pick up some milk at any time of day, and then bring it back to make some delicious pizza. One can dream……