Saturday, May 16, 2009

Soak pits galore!

April was spent planning for and beginning construction of over 100 soak pits throughout the 10 villages of the Kourouma commune. A soak pit is basically a big hole in the ground, filled with sand, gravel and rock, with a pipe entering it from the water source. In our pits, the pipe led out from nyegens. The idea of soak pits is to reduce the amount of standing water, and thus decrease the number of mosquito breeding places which will decrease the risk of malaria. Soak pits also eliminate the smell that comes from the pools of standing water. For anyone who donated money to help buy the materials, thank you! Another idea for this project was simply to introduce the idea of soak pits as an easy way to eliminate standing water. In my village, I had to buy more piping because so many people wanted a soak pit after we built the first ten! I got to make several trips to Sikasso and my market town to buy supplies. One day, I had a rice sack with 170 meters of black plastic inside strapped on to my bike. Another day I rode with 12, one-meter long PVC pipes. Despite the cumbersome loads, having all that stuff on my bike made me feel like a true Malian. I'm ready now for a basket full of goats or sheep to strap on!

The Ciwaara, or dancing bush, fetish came out a couple of weeks ago, which I always love watching. One of my friends came from Sikasso to see the fetish, and I think that having two toubabs caused quite a stir. The tallest fetish chased after us a number of times, and even though I know it won't hurt me, being chased by a 7-foot tall bush-like creature is slightly frightening nonetheless!

On the night of April 27th, I had a birthday party for my mom with several teacher and CSCOM friends. Back in January, I happened to mention to this silly guy who works at the CSCOM, named Nyiere, that my mother's birthday was the 28th. He got really excited and said that when the time rolled around, we'd have a party for her. I thought that he would forget, but about a month beforehand he brought it up again, and continued to talk about it every day after that. Of course he wanted food, and not just any food, but meat, and of course since he is a male, he can't help cook it; so at about 7 pm, his girlfriend and one of her friends came over and we made spaghetti in meat and tomato sauce. The meat took forever to cook, and we didn't finish completely until 10pm. We took the food over to some other teachers' house and ate and listened to music (Akon and Michael Jackson). I was a bit annoyed with the whole food situation, but it turned out to be fun. Nyiere and this teacher who we call Cisse sang a very interesting version of Happy Birthday, which I was able to capture on my camera. We also took about 30 other random pictures, on of which is below.

I had a conversation about arranged marriages with Maminatta the other day. She herself did not want to marry her husband. She wanted to marry a Bamako guy, but once her family decided that she would marry her current husband, there was nothing she could do about it. Her old sister, Awa, has a 13 year old daughter. Awa's family had planned to marry her off to a concession across town, but the head of that concession, who is probably around 70 years old, does not want her to marry one of his sons. He himself wants to marry her! Of course I was very disturbed by that, and asked if Awa, the mother, agrees with that. Maminatta said that whether Awa agrees or not won't make a difference, because Awa's husband has agreed to the arrangement. He is the head of the family; therefore it is his decision.

We were busy with baby weighings toward the end of April. In one village, Zagneguebougou, I weighed a 2 year old girl who was only 5 kilos, or about 10 pounds. I told the mom that she needed to take her to the CSCOM, but I figured she wouldn't. Lo and behold though, a few days later, the woman and daughter, along with the father, stopped by my house on their way to the CSCOM. They were able to get some extra advice from the doctor, along with some multivitamins and other substances to help her grow a bit. I was really happy that the woman listened to me and that they took the time to come to Kourouma. I told the father several specific calorie-dense foods to give her occasionally, and he genuinely seemed like he was going to heed my advice.

That's what I've been up to in Kourouma (that and devouring the entire Twilight series - yeah, I know I'm not 12 years old. The books are addicting). This past week was our COS (Close of Service) conference in Bamako. It was good to see the folks who I came to Mali with (52 out of about 81 are still here), although I also had to go ahead and say goodbye to some folks as well. My COS date is August 27th. It's hard to believe that I only have three months left in Mali. Time flies!

3 comments:

Susan said...

Awa,
I'm so glad you posted about my birthday party. I've told everyone in Hickory about it, and I loved the song! I'll share the soak pit news with my Sunday School Class who helped contribute. What a great project.
Love, Amimatta

Unknown said...

Only 3 months, I can't believe two years has gone by that fast. Thanks for the posting, its interesting to hear about the arranged marriages and the birthday party! I can't wait to see you in... 4 months(?)!

Emma G said...

Ha, I can't believe you had a Birthday party for Mommy! Will you have one for me, too, right before you COS?!

Congrats on your success with the soak pits! Did you plan the project for all 100? Do you teach the people how to make them and get supplies ready, then they do it themselves?

Interesting about the arranged marriages. One positive is that the more you talk about it with people like Maminatta, the more people will think twice about doing it to their own daughters. Maybe Maminatta can stand up to her husband when the time comes and help her daughters marry for the right reasons.

3 months to go! Yay!