Waliye!

So "Waliye" is my most recent step to being FULLY integrated. It is an arabic word, hence the allah sound in it, but sort of a bambara word too. People use it maybe everyother sentence and it literally translates to "I swear to god!" but is used, as I've observed, much like "seriously!" So...I like it, because I really feel I've gotten a grasp of it. Maliens laugh and say, WOW! have you been living here for 10years or what? uh huh.
so I have two weeks left here.
and i found out recently one ONE week left with my family which made my eyes water a bit. I love this family, and lately it's really becoming apparent that they love me- my mom nyamoue the other day, "I don't want my daughter to leave me, i love you, i love you too much" HOH.
MY research has been going well, although writing paper when you're paying for every minute that passes by just adds on that extra bit of stress that's just really fun. But I do have about 10 pages already...without even realizing it!
so i recently found out that my family does have a real toilet and shower inside pretty much just for the parents, but also Tania too. guess why, here is the reason he gave me- he is allergic to the smell. the 'gas' as he put it. Uhhhhh aren't we all??? yeah i'm actually allergic to the nasty smell in public bathrooms...that was silly. today i saw how they empty our latrine (which had been getting dangerously full aand worrying me), which was pretty fascinating- a bit truck come and I think pretty much sucks it all out. because of the smell my brother Moctar started spraying toxic amounts of air freshener everywhere, which to me was worse.

last night I went out my brother Tania and some friends, and we saw some amazing music. the music here is truly unique, phenomenal. Mali's music should be known by all. This guys name was Baba Sala, he was an excellent guitar player- supposedly only second to the very famous Ali Farka. I encourage all that haven't already to look up these names, I can't wait to listen to them for the rest of my life and be reminded of this experience.

I have an overwhelming urge to write down what I am grateful for. One day, on a long drive, at one of the many check points that make you wanna die because you're sitting in a tiny van packed with kids and the wind is no longer blowing through the windows, these kids that approached us were especially aggressive. Cadeau? Bidon? Bic? Chemise? (present? bottle? pen? tshirt?) I got so fille with sadness and undeniable inability to help that it quickly turned to frustration. You have to ignore it after a certain point. Being here, above all else makes me realize what a beautiful life there is waiting for me at home. I constantly make lists in my head, trying to remind mysef which things I always have to consider a privelege once I get home. Toooooo much.
I thought I would come back with all these, oh poo, America revelations, but no. I LOVE America.

I prayed with Ladji again, this time, he took my picture. It's funny, no part of my wants to convert to Islam, but no part of me finds anything strange about praying with him, it feels really great, calming, dhikr - to remember.
I've talked several times to my brother Moctar about my problems with violence. When he hits his sisters playfully (though it's a bit much for a 27 yr old for my taste), I shake my head, and I can see that it gets to him. He always like, "quoi?" He gets all well what do you expect? but I know he feels self conscious. His explanation, defense, is that words can more permenantly bruise someone, versus a slap, thats just in that moment. I told him you have to try to control words too, I'm not for verbal abuse either. Whats so great is that I feel like I can have these really honest conversations with Moctar, among others, not afraid to leave cultural relativity behind and without condemnng him for his actions say, it's not good to hit people, that teaches them nothing except to be afraid. When you know someone so well it becomes more difficult to just say, oh yes, this is what they do in Africa. Its this person I care about right in front of me, and we're able to have really open discussions.
my generalization of the day: Maliens are incredibly tolerant people. they have a very different lifestyle, yet no problem with mine. the religious tolerance, and beyond that, acceptance here is something to learn from.

So I just got back from sanakoroba again, conducting the first half of my interviews. I interviewed about13 individuals, men and women, about polygamy, relaxed, read, played with kids, thought about home mor than ever. if was the least busy time since I've been here because I had to wait for my translator to show up and take me to interviews. I ended up speeding things along and taking matters into my own hands a little more towards the end, conducting more informal interviews with random people I met, but these were all men. Because the women are busy. women are incredibly busy here, constantly working. If anythings going to bring them out of poverty it's the women.

so. one night. after hearing about this sweet dude that plays bob marley songs and jams out all day on his guitar, i went to sleep under the hut next to our lodgings. At 3am i was woken up by "could you be looooved...." sat up, and said, "megana! do you hear that?" my friend sleepily said yeah what is that? I replied excitedly "I think its that guy we were told about, the definitely sounds live!" I laid there trying to fall asleep, but decided I could not without checking out the "concert". So at three in the morning, I ran down the dark village road towards the blaring music and the bright lights, my chacos half on, giving me blisters. As I got closer, I started to wonder what in the world I was doing, and as the music became clearer, I realized, it's not live at all! After finding that all there was to see was some shadow dancing in the bliding lights, I hobbled back towards our hut, into darkness. I wondered if i'd even be able to find it, I couldn't see anything. but all was fine. I went back to sleep my heart pounding, feeling confused as to why I'd run down the road in the first place. I coulda sworn it was live.

so. my friends and i here, in attempt to stay aware of the arrogant pats on the back we could be giving ourselves through the struggles here, laugh and say 'wow, i am learning soooo much about myself'. it's easy to think. it's probably true, and will be even more apparent when I return home. but none of us want to be the annoying friend who gives a condescending scoff when people talk about anything 'difficult' back at home. note: for all listening, do not let me do that, i just may need to hit you in the face with a pillow the first time you complain about food in the dining hall every once in awhile. cool? cool.
bon, so anyway, i think i am getting tired of 'learning about myself'. it's tiring constantly watching my personality deal with the plights of the african life. i'm very ready to not think, wow kyra, you feel guilty waaay too often, you should learn to do what you say and say what you mean without regrets, or why do you feel the need to prove yourself in this situation....blah blah blah. its good for me but wow, i'm ready to sit and relax with kyra, let her be.

meanwhile just being here, has its very strong points too. I find myself making lists in my head of the things i'm grateful for in my country, amongst my friends, in my family. we talk about incredible meat is, as I get about three small chunks of goat/sheep (maybe?) a week, or the healthy feel that fresh green vegetables give you. IN ADDITION. it has been recently brought to my attention that the water here, even after I use my nifty steripen to treat it, is heavily chlorinated and really fails to hydrate me. I gulp down bottle after bottle workin the battery to its maximum only to find i still have a headache...until I realize that everytime we've done an excursion including this recent GRAND excursion and our leaders buy us bottled water, I finally do not feel light headed and lacking energy anymore. hmmm although some other students are just fine, but maybe I just get dehydrated very easily, not sure, but i think i'm gonna stick to leaving my carbon foot print for my last few months and go with the bottled water.

So we finished classes - our last day was a grueling four hours of a man teaching us Bambara and french songs that I'm pretty sure he said were written by his friend. I guess he felt the need to fill the gaping time slot and after writing all the lyrics on the chalkboard he would proceed to sing it about 20 times. i absolutely kid you not. it was almost unbearable. my embarrassment at the fact that only one out of 18 students were paying attention by the end, and the mere annoyance at listening to the SAME simple song over and over made me very angry. I excused myself to go to the bathroom in the middle. i'm not lying when i say that that little trip was more thrilling.

with some easy exams on monday and tuesday, we headed off on our touristy adventure on wednesday. In two burning hot metal boxes filled with 10 kids whose legs did not fit in the space in front of them, whose bare feet could not rest on the floor for fear of the scalding, uncovered surface, we drove to Segou, Djenne, Mopti, and the Dogon country. Beautiful. some of the hotels had air conditioning, and all had actual showers!!! my hair actually felt clean, it was quiet in the nights, no morning prayer waking me up at 5:30, it was glorious. The air was cleaner, life was more calm, packs of children weren't always running behind yelling 'tubabou! tubabou!' at us. Djenne was an entire town filled with mud architecture, including a gigantic mosque that our non muslim status prevented us to enter. My friend Elle and I got lost wandering through mud houses, weaving our way through a maze of small dusty corridors, until finally we found our way back to the hotel. But it felt good. and safe. and people smiled as we walked by. In Mopti we went on a boat ride in the Niger, in the Dogon country (one of the most charming, quaint, beautiful, rural places I have ever been) we went on a difficult hike at 6am, walking over loose rocks and wondering how SIT lets its students do it... The scenery on the long car rides is difficult to describe. A sea of palm trees followed by rocky canyons followed by villages that seemed like something out of a historic museum. Dogon country is upposedely one of the most isolated and unchanged area/people in the whole world. There are round clay huts with straw rooves shaped like hersheys kisses.

There's too much to cover. In all, it was refreshing, tiring and relaxing at the same time. I ate a lot of good food. I used toilets. Our group bonded and got tired of each other. I missed my Bamako family, and started to think about how little time I have left here. I started to stress about my future research. I take off for Sanakoroba on Tuesday to begin interviewing, and I have four weeks to complete that all and write a long paper. (sigh)
Until next time, all is very very very well, I'm excited/scared/amazed/sad at the idea of going home.

and that's when i said "oh fuck yeah bananas!"

When i came home from the internet cafe before I went to the villageI talked a bit with Moctar and told him hos I was feeling with a slightly quivering chin and he gave me a reassuring smile. Then Ladji proceeding to come out, pop in the Paul Simon album Graceland, which makes me feel like my childhood and dancing and my dad. He z&ang beautifully the zulu parts, and I sang along with the English as he grinned at me.
So the village stay. Sanankoroba.
Just when you get used to life, eh? I stayed on a large compound with my friend Katie. So many sisters, brothers, babies, grandmothers, and donkeys... There was a mute and mostly deaf servant who told animated stories with his hands. The youngest son of the family Aruna was due to be married, or well, start his marriage ceremonies on Thursday. Family members kept arriving from Bamako or other villages, the children were multiplying by the second, it seemed like all the women were nursing some child. With the family we helped wash clothes, attempted to stir the to - pronounced toe- (a traditional Malien dish that is millet gooish cream of wheaty, gelatinous stuff with what we have come to call "booger sauce" or gumbo), held babies, clumsily tried out bambara phrases, and just plain observed. the women were dressed beautifully in so many colored pagnes, I started to feel overwhelmed with the amount of overwhelming beauty. I took so many pictures, trying to get as many candids as i could before they would run over to immediately see what it looked like. digital cameras ruin everything - i want to say, no, keep pulling the water out of the well with your stunning skin glistening with perspiration in the 105 degree sun! sweat makes photos look more epic somehow...
With the group we did several traditional arts, dying fabric after stampng wax designs, bogolon -or painting with muddish clay from the bottom of the Niger river. Walking along the road we'd purchase fried tasty treasrues, something like a savory funnel cake, pass by a soccer game that it seemed the whole village was attending, ran into camels.
We went to whats called an SOS village, an orphanage, where women over the age of 36 become mothers to children brought in from the streets. Comparitively immaculate lodgings furnished with fridges, ovens, lush trees lining the compounds. Like a little utopian oasis away from the poverty nearby. SOS has places all around the world, and here in Mali it seems to be doing very well. After seeing children on the street in bamako begging for money, and then actually goign to the orphanage where we can see that a program is really working, far better than foster families in the states, it's so impressive. I felt on the verge of tears all day.

All in all it was a wonderful week and my homesickness quickly slipped away. While I ate barely anything, as "to" was served to us every night, I did remember we had a bushel of bananas in our room. never been so ecstatic in my life about bananas. electricity went in and out, no running water, polygamy, to, and smiles and kindness and beauty and brilliant colors and falling in love with every child i see...

as the wise robert plant says, "your time is gonna come"

well. all the posts can't be super positive I guess. So this last week has been a little rough. While other students experienced their bouts of homesickness at the beginning, it seems my time has come...it did not helt that after eating dinner at a friend of my brother Ladji's house, I was overcome with fullness and then at 2am ish I woke up and puked. I thought that was it. To my dismay, Friday, at school, I found there was more to come. EEsh. But I'm better now, I just, well, really miss home.
Despite all this, my week was filled with laughs both at home and with friends from school. I lucked out with really great group of kids and a really great family. One night this week I talked for along time with my brother Moctar about our respective definitions of the word "respect", very different, he put fear as somewhat synonymous to it, I put them nowhere near each other. But we never got frustrated when our understandings didn't match up...I love this stuff. Another day I had a homework assignment that was supposed to be read a newspaper article then write an essay on it, supplementing your summary with information from various other sources such as conversing with family members visiting businesses, etc. So I ended up talking to one of my sisters, Tanti about contraception in Mali. sooo interesting. I won't go on about it here, but its one of those things where I can really tell why they give these assignments!

Another thing I wanted to add to my little description of kyra's daily life is, my weekend visits to the boutiki on the corner. There is an adorable Ghanain, Ghanian (?) man wh works there. On weekends i go there to purchase my morning bread. THe first time i went there, after speaking french to him and gettinga blank stare I found he asked me if I was french, I said no, American. He got excited and exclaimed, "good, because i from ghana I don't speak french, i speak english!" mmm goood. so every weekend he greets me with his buck tooth smile, in his broken, but wonderful english, asks how my family is.
so tomorrow i head off to the rural village of sanankoroba. no electricity. no running water. SPRING BREAK '09 HERE I COME!!!!

a month?!

Well i realized that I have not been super descriptive. or maybe I have, I don't know, but I decided I shall give you an idea of what my days are like here. If I go on a run in the morning (which has been slightly difficult with the sickness, but i'm feeling better), I wake up at 6am and run to the sea foam green mosque on the main street near my house. There I meet Alys and/or Katie (girls on the program) and we run through the red dust while the sun rises. Then I proceed to do the bucket shower, before I change and meet the SIT bus on the main street. The mornings before class starts remind me of highschool early mornings where we would sit groggily together before class began. But here, we're greeted with a plethora of french bread, tea and coffee, or "lipton"- in a french accent, and nescafe flakes. Sometimes, there's nutella or jam or even laughing cow cheese!
Every week we have an excursion and we've gone to many different places that could potentially correspond to our Independent projects, for example Women's right associations, etc...
After school, sometimes I go to friends houses to see baby chicks, or better yet, little puppies, that actually end up making me more sad than happy. Not too healthy. There is a boulangerie with an assortement of pre-scooped ice cream portions, cool drinks, and french pastries galore! They even have espresso there!! Yesterday we set up shop, did some homework there...it almost felt a little like an afternoon at college...
When I get home I am bombarded with smiles and questions about how my day went. I sit and do homework, do my pleasure reading, watch shitty spanish or australian or american or african soap operas, and often talk at length with my siblings. Now, as it's getting hotter and hotter we are sleeping on the roof most nights, which on the weekends, when I sleep in a little, makes me feel like I'm waking up in the middle of a sunbathing sesh, before I open my eyes, see the mosquito net above me, and realize it's 90 degrees at 9am. splendid.
OH! My oldest brother Ladji asked me last week if i wantexd to pray with hi, mais bien sur!!! We went outside and performed ablutions, washing hands, feet, face, teeth, ears, head in a systematic order. I tried to follow along as he quietly said "bismiallah rahman..." After my younger sister mimi wrapped a pagne around my waist, and they provided me with a scarf to cover my hair and a prayer rug, we climbed to the roof and faced mecca. He told me to simply follow along through the motions.
This is why I came here.
So I am coming closer to solidifying my topic for my independent study. I think i'm going to look at the prevalence of Polygamy and how it is decreasing with the younger generations. I am definitely going to look at how Muslim beliefs both influence and encourage polygamy, and how beliefs are consitent with what Muslim texts actually say.
My health is improving, I think. Its so hard to tell when you're hot and sweaty all the time, but i'm managing. and life is good.

pictures

so this kid on my program, josh, uploaded photos,if you wanna check themout go www.joshmadson.blogspot.com
more news later!