Update: Project Clean Water!

After one of the best vacations of our lives, James and I were a bit worried about the emotional toll our readjustment back to site would take on us. It was going to be sad, not exactly difficult, just sad going back to bucket baths, a limited diet, and inexplicable heat. However, we were lucky that we had so much work waiting for us in our village that we were thrown right back into the swing of things.

With our pump proposal approved while we were gone, we got to village only to turn around 2 days later and come back to the big city with our village counterparts for pump replacement parts. We arranged for the transportation back to site and within the next 6 days, (thanks to our pump repairman’s speed!) we had 4 working pumps in the village! It was so exciting to walk around and see people gathered around the pumps for the first time in over 8 years. We hope this project will have a widespread effect on the health of our village, reducing diarrheal diseases (which are one of the main causes of death for children under 5 here).

 

So now our job is to make this temporary fix into a sustainable solution. Before we left we had taken the initial steps in setting up a Water and Sanitation committee. So this past week, we gathered the committee for basic sanitation and pump maintenance. There role in the village will be as follows : 1) To educate the rest of the village on basic sanitation and pump care practices 2) To enforce rules that will allow the pumps to last longer without breaking 3.) to establish a monthly dues collection mechanism so the village will have money to fix the pumps when they break in the future. Our initial trainings with the committee seemed successful as the village established that each household would pay 50 cents/month. So we will continue to meet with them monthly until we leave to ensure that the money is being collected and the pumps are being cared for.

 

The last thing we did was Pump Awareness presentations for the 5th and 6th grade. Since many parents send their kids for water, we thought it was important to educate the kids in the village about pump usage, the dangers of standing water (aka a breeding ground for mosquitoes and thus malaria), etc. We charged them with being the enforcers of these rules for all the younger kids and so far we seen a noteable change in the way that kids have been behaving around the pumps.

So the most important part of the project—making sure its sustainable—is yet to be done, but it feels good to finally have the main labor intensive tasks of a larger project completed! The unending thanks and happy faces of women in our village have been so encouraging. Its made the adjustment back to Mali so much smoother and hopefully will be a source of encouragement as our villagers get very busy working in their fields for Rainy Season (as soon as June roles around, villagers are often too busy to work with volunteers on a project).

In other news, we recently bought tickets back to America at the end of September as Joye will be in her cousin’s wedding :) We’re already getting excited and its 4 months away!

~Joye (and James)

Travel: Nantes, Rennes, & Paris

For those of our readers who did not actively follow our lives prior to this blog - but continue to do so because of the high standard of quality writing J - it will enhancing you reading of this post to know Joye’s history regarding the French language. After watching their daughter excel at French in high school, Joye’s parents fueled her enthusiasm by vacationing to Paris and hosting an English-studying French student named Marion for three consecutive summers. This encouragement led Joye to major in French on the collegiate level, which included studying abroad for a semester in Nantes, a port city in Northwest France. Up until our trip, I (James) had yet to visit Nantes (pronounced “Naunt”) or meet Marion, though both make up a huge part of who Joye is. So, what I wanted out of the last part of this trip was to better understand Joye, but in addition, I also got what became my favorite part of our “Best.Trip.Ever.”

“Nantes is not touristy,” Joye warned one hundred times prior to the end of our cross-country train ride. Its value, according to her, was primary nostalgic. However, thankfully, she was being over-cautious; there was a lot to see in Nantes: it’s newly restored Gothic cathedral, the former castle of the Duke and Duchess of Brittany, the river, its quaint shopping district, a number of beautiful gardens, and the Machine d’Iles - a street theatre company famous for its creating real-life machines based on the imagination of Jules Vernes (who came from and lived in Nantes).

However, the nostalgic moments were nice too: visiting the offices of Joye’s study abroad programs, eating at three course dinner at her favorite restaurant, just after eating a cheap lunch at Quick, a French equivalent of Burger King, which she ate alarmingly often. The brightest highlight, though, was going to dinner with her former host family in Nantes, who treated us to a spectacular four-course meal, complete with caviar, goat cheese, fresh yogurt, and good French wine. Despite being entirely in French, our conversation was a lively discussion of our work in Mali; Joye led the way, while I was grateful that I managed to keep up.

     

After Nantes, came Rennes (pronounced “Ren”), another important city in France’s Brittany region, where we had to privilege to see Marion and stay in her family’s beautiful home for four nights. There, we were treated to a non-stop cornucopia of French home-cooking, including quiche, beef roast, galettes, crepes, chicken, rabbit paté, and a combination of bread, sausage, and goat cheese, all of which exemplified the French preference for simple, high-quality ingredients. Moreover, each meal came with wine, cider, etc which Marion’s father served generously and frequently. It was a taste of France that we could not afford elsewhere, and so it was greatly savored and appreciated.

Furthermore, the Bertho family willingly drove us around to all the touristy sites, including the awe-inspiring cathedral/mountain/island of Mont Saint Michael (if it doesn’t ring a bell, Google it), the humbling WWII beaches of Normandy, the pirate-haven of Saint Malo, and the lovely seaside town of Dinard. Our final day I spent the morning playing their piano (while everyone was out, of course), and in the afternoon, we toured the cobblestone streets and wooden townhouses of Rennes’s historic district. As a result of our host family’s first-class hospitality, our stay in Rennes achieved the perfect blend of excitement and relaxation so often sought for in a vacation, yet so rarely achieved. Donc, á la famille du Bertho, merci beaucoup pour votre hospitalité !

Then, finally, our trip ended in Paris, which we only intended to spend a few hours in, but instead had to stay overnight, since our airlines Royal Air Maroc mercilessly cancel our flight a week before. But when life gives you lemons, and you happen to be in Paris, make lemonade. So we took the time to visit some site we had not seen before, including the Museum of Orsay (think Van Gogh and Monet), the bone dump called Parisian catacombs, and the other beautiful bone dump called the Father Lachaise Cemetery. We also went and saw Thor, which despite its ridiculous plot, contained all of the phantasmagoric spectacles we had hoped to see in our first 3D movie in nine months.

    

Five hours before our flight, we found ourselves promenading along the River Seine eating darn-good falafel from the Jewish Quarter, when I received a startling text message: “Your flight is cancelled. Register at the airport in 45 minutes.” We were a half hour from our luggage at the hotel, and 45 minutes from the airport. Running, we made it in an hour, which while exhausting, ended up being a perk; we made the new flight, were unable to think about the sad reality of leaving, and (after some complaining) got passes to their VIP room, where we took all of the goodies we could grab. It was an eventful end to an already unforgettable vacation.

Thanks for reading! – James (& Joye)

Travel: France – Annecy & Chamonix

“Mountains, I want to see mountains, Gandalf.” – Bilbo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

In the months (yes, months) leading up to our trip, Joye and I must have repeated this quote from our favorite movie trilogy at least one hundred times. With the exception of Dogon country, Mali is flat, and we often find ourselves craving elevation. So we had long been anticipating our first trip to the snow-capped peaks of the French Alps.

We started this part of the trip is style: first-class high-speed train tickets from Paris to Annecy, a pristine village perched on the end of a crystal-clear lake approaching the great mountain range. We intentionally planned for a seven hour lay-over here, so we had time to explore (which was also made possible by our light packs). During our day there, we promenaded along the village’s canals, took a boat ride to see the mountains better, and slept in a grassy park under a tree. It also happened to be Annecy’s market day, which was so different from Mali in terms of the selection of foods available (strawberries instead of mangos, sausage instead of goat meat, cheese instead of nothing), but so similar in that it was a warm community event. We bought some regional specialties - seasoned sausage and goat cheese – and a basket of strawberries.

 

Our day ended with a winding train ride up into the mountains and into the Alpine village of Chamonix, famous for its view of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the region. Our studio apartment came with a complimentary bottle of wine at a local Irish pub, so we promptly headed out and ordered nachos, real burger and fries, and a pot pie. This was only the start of wonderfully familiar meals to come. Because of our budget, after the restaurant that night, we pretty much only bought groceries. But since our studio came with a mostly-equipped kitchen, this allowed to eat many “delicacies” that are not available in Mali, such as ham sandwiches, cereal with milk, and canned ravioli. However, our last night we splurged and requested an order of tartiflette from a nearby bakery to eat in the studio. Supposedly, tartiflette is only butter, cream, ham, potatoes, and Reblochon cheese, but it was more than that; it was life-changing. Joye has day-dreamed about it every day since.

 

But when the French Alps are right outside your door, you think about more than just food. As expected, we spent much of our time having adventures. Our first morning we spent exploring what it feels like to sleep-in (since it’s to hot to do so in Mali), and then wandered around the boutiques and rues of Chamonix – a quiet, restful day.

However, for the following day, Easter, we had more ambitious plans: to ascend the highest cable car in the world to the Aiguille du Midi, a rock pinnacle turned observation station for the most beautiful section of the French Alps. Despite a little cloud cover, the view from up-top was spectacular, as well as the biting cold and the fresh frosty mountain air. Joye even found a patch of untouched white powder to make a snow-angel. Then, to round out a very spiritual day, we caught the evening mass at small church, which, while in French, was very peaceful.

 

After a day of high altitudes, the next day was planned to keep our feet on the ground, hiking. We basically just found a few trails and started, quickly finding ourselves climbing through a thick wood on a warm spring day. At many times we were reminded of Michigan – the home-country – but at others we found ourselves staring across a steep valley which seemed more reminiscent of the Rockies. We stopped for a picnic lunch at a boarded-up chatlet, and headed back down into Chamonix. We arrived just-in-time for a rain storm, which led us to finding some hot chocolate while doing a load of laundry.  We then savored our studio     apartment, our bedroom loft with its skylight, and the selection of British television channels for one final night before packing up and going to bed.

 

The French Alps were absolutely incredible, but a full day of travel across the country of France starting the subsequent morning brought us into a new location, and the last and final part of this blog series. To be continued…

- James (& Joye)

Travel: Morocco - Casablanca & Marrakech

After 10 months in Mali, we knew that any travel outside of this country would involve some sort of reverse culture shock. Its amazing that when you talk to any PC Mali volunteer, they will tell you that relative to Mali, other West African countries i.e. Senegal, Ghana, etc “feel like America.” Therefore, rather than going straight to France and being blown away by the differences, we decided to readjust in stages, starting with Morocco.  And we were so happy we did, not only did this mean that we were not in Marrakech for the bombing that happened a week later, but that we were able to ease back into life with paved roads, French speakers, good tea, amazing food, toilets, hot showers, air conditioning, etc.

Our plane landed in Casablanca  at 6:30 am and  we had plans to meet a friend from Joye’s semester abroad in France in the afternoon. We spent the day touring the Hassan II Mosque which is the 3rd largest in the world and one of the few mosques which non-muslims can enter. It was HUGE and very ornately decorated. The other interesting thing about it is that there is a verse in the Koran about God’s throne being over the sea, so the mosque is built partially over the ocean. Jim and I enjoyed a picnic outside the mosque and reveled in the views and smells of the ocean which we had not seen in quite some time. That afternoon, we met up with our friend, caught a train down to Marrakech, and upon exiting the train station, caught site of the first McDonalds we’d seen in 10 months, which inevitably led to a feast on double cheeseburgers, fries, and McFlurries. I think we were both amazed that after so long in Africa, these things still tasted exactly the same to us, just all the more awesome for not having had them in so long. Here we were thinking the world, or at least our tastebuds, had changed drastically in our time abroad ;)

We spent the next few days in and around Marrakech, near the Atlas Mountains in western Morocco. The city of Marrakech is best known for its thriving markets so we spent hours wandering through the “souks” and admiring the beautiful pottery, colorful rugs, intricately designed clothing, glass lamps, handmade jewelry, etc. It was a blessing in disguise I think to have so little room in our packs! We also toured many famous ancient palaces, with the most beautiful tile designs and interesting architecture. Finally, we loved Moroccan food! Moroccans are most famous for their “Tajine” which is meat, vegetables, and famous Moroccan spices cooked in a uniquely shaped clay pot over a fire. Awesome. On top of that we feasted on couscous, strawberries, apricots, peaches, and actual orange oranges (the ones in Mali are green).  As the trip kept getting better and better, we kept stopping, glancing at each other, and saying “Best. Trip. Ever.”

After 2 nights in Marrakech, we took a guided day trip to the beautiful Ourika Vally in the High Atlas Mountains. Our group started by visiting a traditional Berber home where we ate a wonderful breakfast of homemade bread, olive oil, honey, and Moroccan mint tea. We continued toward the mountains stopping for a 20 minute camel ride up a scenic trail. And for those who are eager to ride a camel of there own, 20 minutes was enough! Very fun experience, but very uncomfortable! Leaving the camels behind, we drove on into the valley and then completed a 2-3 hour hike to a beautiful ice-cold waterfall carrying all the melted snow down the valley. We were blessed with beautiful sunny 80 F weather, incredible after leaving 110 F Mali in April. We finished off a wonderful day by driving to a restaurant with a terrace that looked over the whole valley and getting served a 3 course traditional Moroccan meal. When arrived back in Marrakech in the evening, Joye and her friend took advantage of the spa that was located in our hotel, while Jim graciously bought fresh fruit and prepared them a wonderful fruit salad for dinner.

 

We spent one more day in Marrakech, enjoying the huge Jamel El-Fna square which is filled with food stalls, orange juice stands, snake charmers, street performers, etc. Jim got a traditional Moroccan shave (including a face massage!) to remove his beard which he had kept to made him more intimidating to pushy vendors. Moroccan vendors are notorious for being pushy and hassling tourists. However, we learned a few arabic greetings, dressed in a culturally appropriate way, and made it clear that we were living in Mali and we had no problems with vendors. So while Morocco is incredibly different from Mali, we think that our Peace Corps experience helped us during our travels. We ended the trip by splurging on a meal at one of the most famous restaurants in town, stuffing ourselves once again with delicious food in order to make up for 10 months of a limited Malian diet.  After a wonderful meal, we returned to hotel and packed up our bags to head to France on the following day.

We’ll post more about France coming soon….

~Joye (and James)