Despite what some may think I have not come to Mali simply because I love 45 degree heat and mangos. I am here to promote human development and fight poverty. I am here as part of a partnership between Engineers Without Borders and the Ministry of Employment and Professional Training working on something called the Multifunctional Platform (MFP). An MFP is a diesel engine mounted on a chassis with a variety of attachments such as rice dehuskers, cereal mills, oil seed presses, battery chargers and water pumps. The idea is to bring energy services, controlled by women, to rural areas to fight poverty.
Women in rural Mali will spend many hours a day on tasks such as food preparation. This usually involves a lot of pounding cereals like millet, fetching water or processing rice. These tasks take a lot of time and physical energy. The MFP replaces the human energy exerted with mechanical energy. This gives the women more time which they usually use for other income generating activities. It can also free time of young girls who often help their mothers with the household tasks; this allows more girls to enrol in school.
The platform is run by the community’s women’s association. If your community has no women’s association you will get no platform. The project does not propose the idea to villages, we respond only to a village that requests a platform or information on a platform. This is mostly because people who are motivated will make things work. If you have taken initiative and are willing to put time, money and energy into something you are likely to succeed. If we showed up in a village and said “Hey, do you ladies want an MFP?” They would all say yes even if they didn’t. The village also has to pay a part of the money for the platform. The village then has vested interest in the success of the platform and has demonstrated they are serious. The women’s group will run it like a business. Some villages have over 300 customers who come to grind millet or press shea butter on a regular basis. These customers save on average about two hours a day.
The project is ultimately run by the UNDP, although in Mali we are autonomous. It is going on in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Guinea and may be expanding further to Niger, Benin and other countries. Mali has been working for over 8 years on the MFP concept while countries like Ghana have been doing it for only a little over a year. EWB is involved in Ghana and Mali and will soon be in Burkina.
So what do I have to do with all this? Well my main job is to expand the use of presses and introduce jatropha oil as fuel for the platforms. Jatropha is a plant that grows in the south of Mali and is used mostly as fencing for gardens or to keep animals away. The seeds can be pressed to make oil that is a substitute for diesel fuel which costs $1.25 CAD here (rural people will make from $2-4 for a day’s labour). Processing the oil also gives you by-products that can be used to make soap, candles, fertilizer and insecticide. The plant is also used for medicinal purposes. The potential is huge. A village could supply itself with fuel and create a variety of products, jobs and money. This goes a long way for allowing the village to control its own future. They become less reliant on the outside and fluctuating oil prices. The use of bio-fuels is also carbon neutral and enviro friendly. The challenge is that we have a great idea but in reality nothing yet on the ground. At present very few people do anything with jatropha seeds. The creation of a whole “Jatropha System” is necessary for things to succeed. A community will have to mobilize a lot of people to make things work. The cost of the press is high making it an investment not everyone can afford. The concept of using vegetable oil as fuel is pretty foreign and people will have to accept it. The women are the ones who process the jatropha seeds but if they start to make a lot of money from it the men will become interested and gender tensions may arise.
I am very excited about my work. We are very conscious of the things I feel are most important. These are issues of community ownership and participation in the decision making process. We do literacy and management training and focus on improving human resources rather than just throwing people in a sink or swim situation. We train local artisans to do maintenance to ensure things keep running after we’re gone. There is a real push for decentralisation and development for and by rural people. This is not all roses our share of complications and challenges arise. My coworkers are great and understand development better than almost everyone I’ve ran across in Africa so far which makes this a great learning environment.
If you are excited about the MFP visit www.ptfm.net. I would gladly answer any questions anyone has. If you read this far you must be interested so drop me a line.
The future is freedom.
Levi

It only took about two weeks of asking most people I ran across if they knew of where I could rent a room to find just what I was looking for. I have two small rooms and an entrance in a concession with 21 other people. My floors are cement but the rest is made of mud. Mud is the most common building material here. My roof has sticks running across and is reinforced with mud. I have recently learned that big hunks of dirt will fall from the roof when it rains. I do not live alone. I have at least two mice, many lizards and hundreds of ants who share the space. I consider it my person effort to preserve biodiversity. Unfortunately they do not help pay the $25 a month rent. I have thought about killing the mice but they have yet to cause me any bother. I figure if I kill them I can’t let them go to waste but I am a vegetarian.
I have a light bulb in each room but no electrical outlet as my landlord has said it will use too much electricity. This means I have no fan and the forty degree heat causes me to sweat about three litres a night. I have recently done some good shopping to equip my bachelor pad with a mat, two lawn chairs, a broom and some buckets. The 22 of us in the concession share one hole in the ground which doubles as a secondary shower. This is not a design feature I would have thought up on my own, although it does help keep the latrine clean.
It is nice to share a common space with a lot of people. There are nine goats who are fun to watch as they run around and try to eat what the ladies are cooking when they turn their backs. There are a few bachelors who play good music and are always making tea. Everyone watches tv together outside especially if there is a football match. Before coming to Africa the thought of someone owning a tv and DVD player but living in a mud walled house seemed an impossibility, now I realize it is quite normal. I sit outside and read, write or chat quite often. Some nights me and my 70 year old landlord Luc sit and listen to RFI or he tells me stories about the good old days.
I am learning a lot about gender roles and family life. You really see how much time is needed for domestic activities. The dirt construction means cleaning must occur often. Cooking is done with charcoal and food is prepared completely from scratch. Almost 100% of the work in the home is done by women, who all seem to be named either Fatima or Mamu. Every man, but only one woman, in my concession speaks French. This helps me learn bambana but makes it tough for them to get a job, although I don’t know where they would find the time to add an extra paying job outside the home. Each lady does some “petit commerce.” This is usually selling snacks they make on the street to get some money. When the children get home from school the girls are sometimes put to work until after dark. This makes it clear how they are at a disadvantage at school as the boys are free to play or study as they like.
When you take a home, a job, a friend or anything you have to accept the good with the bad. Beating children is a regular occurrence at my home. I am not talking about wooden spoon on the bum kind of discipline but serious beating. I don’t know what to do about this. I could physically intervene knowing that will change my relationship with the families for ever, children are essentially property of their parents and I as an outsider should have no role. This would do nothing for stopping the activity when I am not there. In order to stop this I would have to convince the parents that beating a child is wrong or that there is a more effective way to get children to behave well. The trouble is the children are conditioned to only do things based on a fear of violence. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get a child to listen to you without a credible threat of violence. Any advice on how to improve this situation would be appreciated. Any historical examples of societies that moved from accepting to condemning child beating?
If you are ever in the neighbourhood go to Sevare III, Rue 70, Porte 448. Guests are always welcome.
Do it for the kids.

While the majority of the world is trying to complexify, especially with material possessions, there are a few of us trying to simplify. Today talking with N’Diaye we discussed how people here who cannot afford a motorcycle buy one anyway. Their income would be much more conducive to buying a bicycle like mine. Their pride won’t let them do it. Who wants to be seen riding down the street on a bicycle. Pedal bikes are for poor people. N’Diaye said that if Mali wants to advance people will have to put these silly ideas behind them and do what needs to be done. It’s mostly a matter of long term planning. Save money now such that you can make more in the future. If a pedal bike can transport you where you need to go why spend the extra money on a motorbike? The money you save could help put the kids through school. People don’t think that way. Whatever is defined as wealthy in a society is what people will strive for. In Africa and South America people want to buy imported products. This is terrible for their local economy. While African farmers are desperately trying to sell rice African consumers are flocking to buy imported rice from the US or Thailand. People need to consume locally made things and forget the fake idea that imported is better. It is not only African’s who make choices based on social pressures rather than what I would call reason.

How many north Americans own SUVs that never leave the paved road of the city. What a waste of money, never mind the environmental impact. My mother considers me a radical so maybe my opinion on this is malaligned but I cannot see any logical reason to buy an SUV if it will be driven only on paved roads. It costs more than a van or car and uses more gasoline. It adds no functionality and even most are not that good in real off road situations.

In general people will seek material possessions they don’t need for reasons sometimes even they themselves cannot justify. To all the urban SUVers out there why do you have such a thing? Please email me the reason because I fail to understand. Vehicles are not the only thing. How many people have a house with one remote control? Now the home entertainment system must have a tv with at least 50 channels so it takes you thirty minutes to realize there is nothing on. Then you have to add a DVD player, stereo, internet on the tv and a Nintendo. Each with their own controller such that a guest could never figure out how to watch the news without calling your 10 year old child for technical assistance. All this to entertain ourselves are we any more entertained than people were 50 years ago? I’m happy with a short wave radio, an empty field and frisbee and friends near by. If we’re going to complicated we’ll bust out a guitar or some drums.

I fight the same small personal battles here in Africa I do in Canada. People always want to know why I don’t have a tv. Is it a problem with money? No. Then why don’t you buy one. It is a foreign concept to have the financial means to do something yet choose not to do it. In Canada people will understand your logic but choose to act otherwise, while in Africa they cannot even understand. I guess they are working so hard to be able to get a TV they can’t imagine being able to but saying no. Then what would they have worked for? It is much easier to refuse something you can obtain as a matter of choice than to not have something because you lack the means.

The most recent thing I rejected for simplification purposes was my Gillette Mach 3 razor. While I was in Accra my last blade that I brought from Canada six months previous was wearing out. Amazingly you can get refill blades even in Ghana or Benin. I went into what we call an Obruni Mart (Obruni means white man). There are a few of these fancy western style supermarkets in Cotonou and more in Accra although I haven’t seen any in Mali yet. Walking into a little piece of Europe with cheeses and packaged imported food I made a break for the cosmetics section. I found the razor blades I wanted. Each blade was about the same price as my daily budget. I stood staring at the blades. I turned and looked at all the people in the Obruni Mart. Western culture, consumption and complications were rejected and I went home. Tom uses a straight one blade safety razor to shave. Replacement blades are a few cents and available all over the world. For a $1.25 I got the holder and five blades. The shave is the same just a simpler, cheaper apparatus.

Saving money by simplifying my life increases my freedoms. Every Gillette razor blade I don’t buy is one extra day in Africa. At night I am not free to watch female mud wresting on channel 97 but I am free to work for a small living allowance in Mali. Before I went traveling in South America a friend told me he would love to do the same thing but didn’t have the money. He did have a car and a motorcycle though. Selling the car would have given him enough money to travel with me for months. His material possessions were restricting his freedoms. He thought they were increasing but in the case of his vehicles I was just as free to move without the cumbersome costs. Often we chose possession over experience, or buy into a system that keeps us in the system rather than stay out and free.

All the badness going down in Togo at the moment has made me think of some of the Liberian refugees I’ve met here. I have put in something from my journal about two guys I met in Ouagadougou who had fled Liberia because of the war. Let’s all hope that Togo can peacefully resolve it’s political problems. If you want to do more than hope you can learn about what is happening and then decide on action you would like to take.

I am still thinking about the two Liberian guys, Emmanuel and James, I met yesterday. They were students, just like me. They could have been me. In late 2003 they were forced out of their country due to violence and threats to their personal safety. James told me about being beaten and showed me his scared and discoloured back. He said it was difficult to talk about because it made him think back to how he felt when the beatings were happening. They fled from Liberia to Guinea. They left their studies, home, family and everything they owned. After some time in Guinea they were forced to leave for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. Something about militias and more violence that made their stay in Guinea not safe. They eventually ended up in Burkina over a year after they left Liberia. Their goal was to find the UN commission for refugees. Apparently there is no help for Liberian refugees in Burkina, however there is in Ghana. So they were trying to get to Ghana.

They found work here and there but since they did not speak French it was very difficult. In their last job doing construction Emmanuel injured his hand. It was very swollen and he could have used some ibuprofen and wanted pain killer. Finding a manual labour job with only one good hand is pretty tough and he could not work any more. Small surprise he hurt himself due to poor safety precautions and the fact he is more used to studying out of a book than physically sweating on a construction site. They had convinced a lorry driver to take them to Accra, where they have been told the UN could help them out. It is possible they will get sent home on a boat from Accra and given some money to get themselves started again. The problem is that they needed 500 FCFA ($1.25 CAD) to get stamped out of Burkina and food for the three day trip. They planned on eating gari and water, another 1000 FCFA. Usually I don’t give people money. A lot of people ask me for money and am mad at myself for saying no and even more mad if I say yes and create dependence. I do give to those such as the blind, elderly and disabled. They should be taken care of but their governments cannot do it so they survive on the generosity of strangers. I believed these guys. They could have easily been me. You always feel as if you are immune to these problems. Or you self righteously claim that if you were in the same situation you would find a way to make things work. Well if I was in the same situation I would have been in big trouble, stuck in a country where you don’t speak the language with no money or possessions and the mental scarring of attacks. I told them that I would give them the money for their stamping and go to the market to buy gari with them. The condition was that this money was a loan. They would have to pass on what I had given them to someone else in need some day. As they go back to become the new leaders trying to rebuild their country I know they will help many people. I don’t believe my giving them the money was wrong. They were focused on a goal and were not going to waste the money. Emmanuel wanted pain killers but understood that the money is better spent on a ride to Accra in pain, than another night on the street without hurt. When buying the gari the lady tried to oversell. She started at over double the real price. This angered us all as she saw they were in a desperate situation and vulnerable.

They were going to spend three days eating gari and water because that’s what they had to do to solve their problem. Other people would not have tolerated such meager rations. I really hope things work out. Their problems are my problems. It hurts me to see them struggle. It is chance that they had to ask me for help, maybe tomorrow I’ll have to ask them for help. It is too bad that we often only help those we identify with. Would I have helped them if they were not young male students? If I did not see myself in them would I have cared? I think these are really important questions. It was crazy to talk to a peer who has the same education and thought process only he is in a totally different situation. Every day I realize more things that I take for granted.

Maybe tomorrow they’ll help me without my even knowing it. Maybe these students will go on to discover a cure to HIV or how to make Liberian blood diamonds help rather than hurt people. It is likely some of their brothers and sisters are still fighting to get back to Liberia. They could be anywhere in West Africa. Doctors trying to sweep streets to get enough money to get to the capital and plead their case before someone at a UN office. Just like PHD holding taxi drivers in Canada try to get enough money to bring their children over.