Thanks for the Camelbak

So, this week has been a blur. It’s mostly revolved around eating, drinking, dancing, and catching up with friends. Everyone has left by now, even the sick folks (which was the majority, for sure). Someone came with a crazy bacterial infection and got about thirty or more of us sick two days after Thanksgiving. Luckily, that’s over. But, before any of that happened and before Thanksgiving/birthday festivities went down, I had two work meetings. Since I’ve been talking about my pump/maternity projects, I thought I’d write a little update.

Maternity
The game plan (in a nutshell) was to talk to the regional government reps to see if they could lend their support in making a public maternity in M’Pedougou, the village near mine on the main road. For about a dozen reasons, this would be far superior than Chelsea from Peace Corps building it, and the Chef de Post (head of the only health center already in my commune capital) agreed, as did the mayor and the President of the ASACO (Association de Santé Communitaire). All three of them work together, but not as smoothly as I thought. Last Thursday I went to the capital of my commune, to talk to the ASACO pres and let him know that we are seeking a maternity in M’Pedougou. His job is really like the Board of Directors for health stuff in the commune, so it’s not like he was going to say no. Even the mayor said that asking him was only a formality.

So, Oumar and I went to him and had the worst conversation ever. To make a very long story short, he admonished Oumar and I for not coming to him sooner to talk about this. To be fair, this was five days before the scheduled meeting in Sikasso. However, the Chef de Poste informed him of the idea three weeks prior, when the CDP said he’d take care of it. So he knew. But waited until we came to him to tell us he was demanding a meeting with us, the mayor, and the CDP before he would consent to going to Sikasso for a meeting with the head of the regional government. Oh, great. Then he kept saying things like, “Let’s not put the cart before the ox” and “It’s okay, Tintio. Everyone makes mistakes. You’re new here, you’ll learn.” It was all I could do not to reach over and knock his little chair over and tell him he was a pompous patronizing boob who was trying to take the upper hand in the project. In fact, I would have been fine with him taking charge over the request for the maternity as it’s his JOB but he didn’t volunteer his help. In fact, he became a thorn in my side. So, we went back to the mayor and he said something along the lines of “Yea, he’s not very good.” Which is strong language for Bambara. 

Anyways, the mayor hatched a plan to go with Mama, the Peace Corps regional director for Sikasso, to the president of the Sikasso ASACO the next day (Friday) to let her know what we wanted to to and ask for advice on how to go about doing it. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen until Tuesday, an hour before our scheduled meeting with the Cercle de Sikasso. Great timing. Once that finally happened we were informed that since our CSCOM (Centre de Santé Communitaire) was not an official CSCOM (it’s built and run by a Catholic Mission—NEWS TO ME) we couldn’t request funding or help or permission to build a maternity until we had an official CSCOM. In fact, I learned that the so-called “official/public” health buildings really have nothing to do with being publicly funded. The Malian government plays this game where they “find partners” to build such buildings. The money comes from aid money, not from Mali. I knew that this wouldn’t be a slam dunk, but it’s still so frustrating to know that there is money for these projects, it just gets used on other things. (So tells me Peace Corps). So, I’m back at square one with the maternity thing. I’m definitely not building a CSCOM, so I’ll have to see what M’Pedougou wants to do.

Pump

Sadly, more of the same. So, like I blogged before, my village has decided to take up a 500 CFA tax per family, per month. I know that there is money for pump projects in the national budget (40% of the Malian budget is aid money, as per the last ambassador). Surely, I thought, some of that must be earmarked for water project. Peace Corps confirmed this. So, I thought that since my village was already willing to collect some of the money necessary, perhaps the prefect will meet them part way. But of course, this was too much to ask for. In the middle of the meeting, Mama (regional coordinator) told me they would never agree. So, I wasted an entire day and my homologue came all the way from village just to get shot down and told they were on their own. I was so frustrated. A huge reason that I wanted Oumar to come was to show him how to go about talking to his elected officials about asking for help and putting my village’s needs in front of the people with power. It was truly disheartening to have meetings that not only didn’t go well, but went in the opposite direction of well.

Thanks for the Camelbak-- hydration was key on my  Golden Birthday Barcrawl

That happened on Tuesday of last week, then it was my birthday, then I cooked stuffing for 84 of my closest Peace Corps friends (we had so much we ran out of dishes so we used the drawer of the refrigerator to hold it), and then a few dozen of us threw up and pooped rainbows for a few days. So, I haven’t really had a chance to process the information or deal with the next steps I need to take. Nothing is insurmountable, but I feel defeated. I know that there is definitely still a possibility that something will shake out, but for now… I just want to go on vacation to Rome.

You may have heard about the kidnappings of Westerners (French, Dutch, German and South African) in Hombrie and Timbuktu. I want to assure you that Peace Corps has been in close contact with PCVs and that we’re all safe. Hombrie is about 150 miles north of our northernmost volunteer, and both areas have long been off-limits to Americans and Peace Corps Volunteers. Personally, I feel very safe in Sikasso and trust the Embassy and PC to do what’s best for all of us. So, if you were worried, you can relax a little. If you had no idea, you can research AQIM (Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb) and learn something new today. I've also added links to the articles about the Hombori and Timbuktu kidnappings for your perusal.

In the next two weeks I am going to make sure my village has started collecting the money for the water tax and possibly host a Peace Corps Water/Sanitation staff member and a pump company representative for an appraisal. I will also be listening to Justin Bieber’s Christmas album. On repeat. Don’t judge me- getting into the Christmas spirit is hard here. Besides, it’s time I introduce my village to the Biebs- the second goal of Peace Corps is helping people outside the States understand American culture, after all. After those two weeks I leave to go to Bamako for a few days to pick up some things before ROME! I can’t believe it’s coming up so quickly. I made it! It feels so good to look forward to being with Matt.

Birthday Cake!

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. I am going back to site loaded down with all sorts of envy-inducing goodies from birthday and Thanksgiving care packages. Thank you all for thinking of me. I’ve been here for ten months tomorrow! and I couldn't have done it without y’all’s love, support, letters, and confidence in me. You’re the best! Oh, and today is World AIDS Day—do you know your status? Wrap it up, get tested, and tell your friends! Knowledge is power!