It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…

I have yet to get past page one of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, which has been gathering dust on my bookshelf for the past six months. The first sentence rings true though in Kourouma right now. It is the best of times because…mangoes are here! My impatient waiting for the last few months has finally come to an end. Unfortunately however; with mangoes come the worst of times: hot season. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that there are beads of sweat covering my face from 8 am to 8 pm and it is steadily in the 90’s.

I am in Sikasso after spending over four weeks at site. The reason I stayed in Kourouma for so long was so that I could do a HEARTH, a twelve-day program with women who have malnourished babies. There were twelve women and babies in this HEARTH. We came together every day to prepare an ameliorated porridge together, to then divide and feed to the kids, and discuss different health topics, such as the food groups, weaning, diarrhea, malaria, and family planning. The women themselves provided corn, peanut, soybean, millet and rice powder, and we also added Moringa tree powder every day, along with bananas, mango or papaya almost every day. The idea for ameliorated porridge is to include all three food groups (here we emphasize only three: protection foods such as fruits and veggies, construction foods such as protein and dairy, and energy foods, mostly carbs) and use local ingredients so that the women will hopefully continue to make ameliorated porridge even after HEARTH is over. I weighed the babies on the first and last days, and while there were a few who didn’t gain weight, no one lost weight. Despite attendance issues (on average about eight women showed up each day) and time (we were to meet at 2 o’clock each day but usually didn’t start until 4) I am overall very pleased with how HEARTH turned out. Hopefully the women now understand the importance of ameliorated porridge in getting a variety of nutrients into their babies, and now are more educated on different health topics. For me personally, it was great to get to know a group of women whom previously I recognized through baby weighings but wasn’t on a first-name basis with.

One piece of exciting news is that Maminatta had a baby boy on March 18th. I was honestly very worried about her pregnancy because she already has a herd of kids and her youngest, Sanata is only a year and a half old and underweight (she’s not walking on her own yet). Now that she’s had the baby though, I think things will be okay. And guess who the baby is named after – my dad! After she delivered, I asked how they would name the baby (a couple of her kids were named by the Imam and other kids were named after family members). She said that her husband’s older brother who is chief of their concession would pick out the name. She said the baby might be named Lamine, after her husband’s father who just died two weeks ago. Then she said that if that didn’t happen, I could think of a Christian name for him. I said that I would have to think of some names, and she said, “Well what’s your old man’s name?” I said Thomas and she said, “Thomasi Traore – that sounds pretty good.” Almost everyone I know with a Christian name has an “i” at the end, for example Moniqui and Ivertti. So Maminatta asked her husband who asked his older brother and there is now the first Thomasi in Kourouma and probably all of Mali. I feel honored that she would think to name the baby after my family.

There have been several deaths and thus plenty of greeting to do. In early February I greeted at a Sarakati (held seven days after the person dies) for an old Muslim man who owned a butiki that is right across the street from my homologue’s house. I got there at about 8 am and sat on a mat with some other women. The men were clustered together in another part of the concession. We sat for about forty-five minutes; some women chatting, others silent. At one point a man walked around with an offering basket for people to make small gifts, and later on women walked through passing out hard candies. Communal bowls of rice and sauce were also dispersed, but I followed some people and got up to leave as rice and sauce early in the morning wasn’t very appealing to me.

I wrote earlier that Maminatta’s father-in-law, Lamine, died a few weeks ago. He was Animist, so funeral greetings were slightly different. He died on a Wednesday afternoon and beginning Thursday morning, men from the concession began playing traditional instruments such as drums and a guitar-like instrument. I went to greet at noon and there was a line of people slowly dancing in an area next to the concession, led by the musicians who were wearing mud cloth outfits. Towards the back of the line were Lamine’s daughters, their clothing covered in mud. I asked Maminatta why they were covered in mud, but she just said that it was tradition for the daughters of a deceased Animist male to cover their clothes in mud. The line of people entered the concession, where the musicians stopped to play for a group of old men. They took a brief break and then continued playing music and dancing until late afternoon.

A few weeks ago a young pregnant woman came to the CSCOM from another village. When I saw her she was clearly in severe pain with malaria. She was put in a bed and attached to an IV. That afternoon, when I walked into the CSCOM concession to get water, I was surprised to see about twenty old men sitting on mats next to the pharmacy and in another cluster, a group of old women. I asked around and learned that the pregnant woman had died and a group of men had already taken her to the edge of village to bury her. Some women placed buckets filled with water outside of the CSCOM so that the men returning from the burial could wash their hands. I sat for a few minutes, offered blessings, then got my water and went home. As soon as I got home, a wind storm blew up. I stood in my kitchen, watching the CSCOM entrance through the crack between the wall and door. Pretty soon, a group of men returned from the burial site, and I could just make out their outlines as they struggled to walk through the heavy winds. As I was watching them bend down to wash their hands, I wondered if the woman’s husband was among them; the man I had given a blessing to that very morning, that his wife and unborn child would get better. Tragic deaths like that are so common in Mali that they’re not even a huge deal. It’s amazing to think of differences like that between here and the US.

After all this writing of death, I shall finish with a more humorous story. There isn’t a lot that shocks me anymore in Mali, but a few weeks ago I saw something that I just couldn’t get over. I was hanging out with this funny old woman named Ma, who likes to annoy me by only speaking in Senoufo when she knows perfectly well that I can’t understand. At one point, this little girl named Biba, who is about five years old, walked up. She was crying softly and Ma called her over. She hugged Biba to her and Biba leaned her head against Ma’s chest. Slowly, Biba reached her hand down Ma’s shirt collar, pulled out a sagging (milk less) breast, and proceeded to suck/chew on the nipple for about five minutes. Now I’ve seen babies or toddlers suck on a grandmother’s breast before, but never a child as old as Biba. I asked Biba if she wasn’t old, and Ma just laughed, pulling out her other breast and explaining that there was indeed, no breast milk there!

I hope everyone is happy and content in the US of A. I want to send a shout out to Emma and Alex who are about to depart for Peace Corps Ukraine - please keep our mother in your prayers that she doesn't have a nervous breakdown what with all of her kids out of the country at the same time! Also, GO HEELS - sweet 16 woo!