I have meandered my way back to Mali after a vacation in Canada and a stint at EWB’s national office in Toronto. Sevare today is a different place now than when I left a few weeks ago. The rains have come and everything is blooming and growing. The fields beside work are full of millet and maize over 8 feet high. The air is thick with that something that smells like green. It’s humid. You feel it when you breath as the humidity jumps into your lungs and you are swimming compared to the dry dust of a few months ago. The lack of light is startling, the darkness at night seems invincible and all consuming. The moon is not out and my eyes acclimatized to humming fluorescent lights radiating down on me. So much that I even bought a second light bulb for the old house.

I have trouble believing I am only kilometres away from the Sahara. The heat is down to a bearable level. I no longer feel as though the air itself is attacking me. My home has become a haven of mice and dust in my absence, although I was happy to find a nice new table sitting the corner.

I do the same things I used to but now it is different. I eat the same bowl of beans and couscous but it now tastes different, more earthy and bland. I notice the crunch of little rocks. It’s amazing how much you influence how you experience the world. My home here that used to seem nice to me know feels a little dirty and unfriendly. The mice who used to be my roommates are now just pests. Everything feels slower. At first I thought the pace of life in Mali must have changed because it is the end of the rainy season. Then I realized it wasn’t Mali that had changed but my perceptions.

As always life here is emotional. The first few days provided a total change every six hours from bouncing off the walls happy to banging my head on the walls. When I first arrived I felt utterly alone. After stepping off the plane I had tasks to keep my mind busy, get a taxi, go to hotel, get money from the bank, extend my visa, get on the bus to Sevare. Then I was left alone with my thoughts. My whole support network was now attached to me only through an internet umbilical cord floating somewhere in cyberspace. Here I am not quite able to fit in with the manly men who want to be seen as powerful so they put others down. Nor do I fit in with the women with whom I have very little in common. That’s looking at things pessimisticly though. I have some good friends here who make me happy. I can meet people on the street. There are people in the street. Life is lived in public here. Children are often referred to as a “jeune du cartier” or a child of the neighbourhood. Brought up mostly by their parents but in part by everyone else. A woman here can set a child who she’s never seen before straight if they are misbehaving. In Canada you would probably get prosecuted for trying to parent someone else’s child. I have started to lose my feeling of loneliness and am feeling at home again.

I am reenergized. I realized that my whole life I living off of borrowed energy from others. In Mali that wasn’t the case. On a slow day I am probably the third most energetic person within a 200 km radius. I was putting out but getting nothing back and soon not putting out as much. Spending a lot of time overseas makes you reorganize your life. Are you going to have a support network back in Canada or in Mali or both? You don’t know where your home is? Is Sevare my home or just some place I am working. Anyway it was good to consolidate and take stock. Look back on a year of learning and loving. Figure out where I am headed and how I’m going to get there. For now I’m headed to check out my peanut farm and I’m going by bike.

So I have decided to make my blog a priority. I have also decided to change it up. Rather than just logistical type updates I’m going to have some postings that are a little more journalesque. I want to do this for two reasons. Those who are keen enough to actually read this far are probably my friends, you may be interested in how I’m doing and feeling. This will keep you more up to date with my joys and sorrows. The other is for people who want to know what it is like living far from home in a place that to you feels strange. Of course my experience is just that of one person but I feel it will show people what goes through your mind. Anyway this means I’ll have to actually post on a regular basis. Don’t be shy to reply. Usually a post will net me about two replies so it’s not like I’m inundated with emails.
See you all.

After three days in Maourolo, a village of 227, I thought there was no one who spoke French. There weren’t even many people who spoke bambara the most prominent language in Mali and one that I can get by in. Everyone spoke Bobo a language in which I am about as useful as a six year old with flailing arms, pointing and trying to make really over exaggerated facial expressions. As I was exploring the little village at night before dinner someone greeted me in French, good French with a nice accent and proper grammar. The voice was that of Noelli the school teacher in Maourolo.

She moved to Maourolo from a near by village and teaches 50 7-8 year olds in the cement one room school house. She has a beautiful young daughter who is always with her checking out the world from her wrapped up position on mom’s back. Noelli moved from Sanekui a few kilometers away when she finished grade nine. She says she would like to continue her schooling but she can't afford to live in the city where there is a high school. She’s on her rainy season vacation now as school is out and the children are working the fields. She’s got her own field in village which was a part of the deal for her to come there. Slyly she tells me that she agreed to come to the community founded school only if they gave her some land. She’s a forward thinker always making plans for the future so she can provide for her family. The government has no school in town so the parents got together and hired Noelli, although they are not able to pay her. Now as her back up plan she’s growing a fantastic peanut crop.

She appears to have infinite patience as I ask her about two million questions from how to make sauce with baobab leaves to why she didn’t go on in school to what it’s like being away from her home. Maybe she gets it from having a class of 50 seven year olds screaming all the time. On my second visit I needed an animatrice to do an activity with a bunch of different women in the village. She volunteered immediately and was a very diligent worker. Once again her patience helped as we went house to house on what seemed like a never ending voyage asking every woman the same questions. Although she is young you could tell she is respected. All the women felt at home with her. She excitedly explained to me all the things the other women of the village were doing. After the money comes in from her field she’s going to start what she calls “petit commerce” at the nearest market on Wednesdays. Her eyes tell me that she’ll succeed.

At lunch we would come back to her quaint little home so she can make me some toh, a type of millet paste you grab with your hand and dip in a gluey okra sauce. She laughs as she tells me she makes the best toh around. I’m sceptical but don’t let on. She continues to run ideas past me about what she wants to do. She is very interested in baobabs and the way they give you leaves for sauce but take almost no energy to keep up. She needs to be doing this because the 8 dollars a year per student the parents are supposed to pay doesn’t come in. If you do the math that means she doesn’t make the $400 a year she should. She does get about a tonne of millet meaning her and her daughter Sarah won’t go hungry. Her face turns sad and eyes sink as she tells me this. After a minute she gives a soft smile and says that it’s okay because she knows the parents simply cannot pay. She’s very young, early 20’s at most, and it is incredible that she is willing to sacrifice for her new neighbours. Usually security comes at an older age when you have built up assets. She’s a woman a bit ahead of her time. She is blazing a trail that other young girls will follow although she hasn’t noticed that she’s a role model to the girls of the village.