Update: The Coup & the Poo

So Mali’s had a coup d’etat.

Now I’m guessing that almost all readers of this post are checking our blog to make sure we’re safe and okay. Rest assured, we are. Peace Corps is monitoring the situation carefully and has been is regular contact with us since last Wednesday. Honestly, our main concern at this point is not for our safety, but for the completion of our project work. I am only one day at the bank away from finishing up work on my tree-planting project, but the banks have been closed since last Thursday! We are also very concerned for the future of Mali’s democracy, given that it was a model in the West African region, but has now become a joke. If you would like to read more on the situation, check out articles from the NY Times, Washington Post, AP, Reuters, and BBC, that latter of which has a correspondent in Bamako.

But way out in Kongodugu, we only found out about the coup through a series of text messages from Peace Corps and the US Embassy. “PCVs, please avoid Bamako tonight due to demonstrations.” “Disturbance in Bamako; US Citizens advised to stay indoors.” “PCVs, a coup d’etat has occurred, who’d a thunk?” “Curfew established; US Citizens advised to stay indoors.” And the like. For those in Bamako, my understanding is that the situation is still tense, but out in village, most Malians reacted to news of the coup with a very “c’est comme ca” (it is was it is) attitude. Even in Duguba, people do not see Bamako as affecting their daily lives; therefore, they don’t clearly see - for better or worse - how this ‘military disturbance’ should affect them either.

The whole episode reminds us of an incident that happened in the Allen household last week. For the sake of analogy, Joye will be mutiny leader Amadou Sonogo, I will be Mali’s democratically elected president ATT (nice arrangement, huh?), and my awesome cell phone will represent Mali’s democratic government. On Saturday night, just after dark, Joye took control of my cell phone – which has a flashlight – in an effort to protect herself from scorpions while going to the nyegen. Regular readers may remember that a nyegen is an outdoor, hole-in-the-ground bathroom. Clearly she believed that she could use my cell phone more effectively than I could. However, a minute after her coup d’phone, I heard her cry: “Crap! Crap! Crap!”

Joye had dropped my phone, its backing came off, and it bounced down the nyegen hole, landing in a pile of crap. Of course, all eyes turned to me to come up with a solution. Peering down into the hole with another flashlight (which I was holding), we noticed that the phone landed face down, the battery had flown out, and the SIM memory card – which holds all of the phone’s valuable information – was visible and unblemished. Let this SIM card represent the spirit of democracy, the sanctity of the Constitution, and rule by the people. It needed to be recovered.

We quickly rigged up a solution. Though it’s inconsistent to our analogy, Joye helped by digging through a trunk and finding a fridge magnet. I then fastened this to a long rope, which I skillfully lowered into the dank deep hole, Mission-Impossible style. Thanks to good aim and electron realignment, it soon clung to the back of the phone. I carefully pulled on the rope, and reluctantly, it rose out of the poop with a suction sound. All that was left was to bring in the lifeline to remove the cell phone from its malodorous environment.

This is the state of Mali’s democracy. It remains suspended between the open air, that is freedom, and a swamp of feces. Extraction from this sticky situation could mean the preservation of democracy with the upcoming presidential elections, which were set to occur at the end of the April. But one wrong tug of the rope, so precarious and fragile, could send the hope of elections and decentralization back into the fetid abyss, n’er to return. ATT, who has yet to react to the takeover, is certainly between a rock and a smelly place.

But as Joye and I watched the cell phone ascend in the thin beam of the other flashlight, we did not give up hope. We held our breath as it rose out of the nyegen hole, nervous to face the moment of truth and also because it reeked of putrid waste. Putting aside my fear of getting my hands dirty, I swiftly bent over the cell phone and successfully wheedled out the SIM memory card. We both laughed in the joy of success, before we both had to leave the revolting sight of decay and maggots.

Over the next few days, I did my best to clean off the cell phone. We rinsed it thoroughly, scrubbed the niches with Q-tips, soaked it in bleach water, and dried it in the sun. Surprisingly, it still worked, but sadly, it still stinks of poop. In the aftermath of whatever will occur here in Mali, this is an important lesson. Any solution will not rid us of the odor caused by this setback to democracy. Unless, of course, we buy a new and improved phone, which is what we did.

Let us hope that Mali can get its democracy back on course, for the sake of our projects, our villagers’ future, and the preservation of democracy in West Africa.

~James (and Joye)