Reflection: The List Blog

Since returning and starting to reflect on our service, a lot of people have asked us, “Was it worth it? Would you do it again? How was it?” Though we believe it was worth it, its always a hard question to answer because, as anyone who read our blog knows, it was a challenging experience that was a lot different than we ever imagined it would be. Indeed, summing up the complexity of our experience and what we’ve learned into any one post or conversation has proved a challenging task. However, just brainstorming made us realize how many interesting competencies we have now that we lacked prior to Peace Corps.  So instead of trying summarize everything, we started putting our memories into lists. Here’s a few that we thought you all would enjoy:

 

Skills we’ve attained in Mali:

• How to eat rice and sauce with our hands and not make a mess
• How to make Urine Fertilizer, Natural Mosquito Repellent, Soap, Improved Nutritious Porridge, Moringa Powder
• How to speak in Bambara and greet in Mianka
• How to live without electricity or plumbing …the key : a quality headlamp
• How to purify unsafe drinking water
• How to poop in a hole and take a bucket bath(these are both acquired skills!)
• How to outrun a rainstorm (though I feel like ‘monsoon’ describes it better)
• How to self-diagnosis and prevent malaria, amoebic cysts, bacterial dysentery, giardia, dehydration, skin infections, and malnutrition
• How to maintain a vegetable garden and compost when it only rains 4 months a year
• How to stay cool in the heat (i.e. wrap yourself in a large wet piece of cloth)
• How to tie a turban and a wrap skirt (pagne)
• How to cook  Toh, Rice and peanut sauce, Rice and onion sauce
• How to make flour tortillas by hand and from scratch for amazing quesadillas
• How to plan meals when you have no refrigerator, and access to fresh produce only once/week
• How to kill a Scorpion (James’  weapon of choice: a hammer)
• How to kill a rat roaming through your house (James’  weapon of choice : a wooden club)
• How to smile and tell a mother how beautiful her child is when its peeing all over my brand new clothes.
• How to give an impromptu speech in a foreign language
• How to deal with everyone staring at you….ALWAYS
• How to, as a woman,  lead a successful meeting involving 25 village elder men who do not respect women
• How to be a self-starter and work in a totally unstructured environment
• How to do my laundry by hand (and not get made fun of by the locals)
• How to strip a dried fish of its bones in order to get a small amount of protein in your diet
• How to transport myself + 100 lbs of luggage over 7 km using only a mountain bike
• How to appreciate, SO MUCH,  the importance of what I used to label “boring” topics like malnutrition and maternal health 
• How to bargain like a local (i.e. telling the vendor he eats beans in multiple scenarios)
• How to build a mud-oven, albeit a bad one
• How to identify at least 20 varieties of African trees
• How to pull down a ripe mango that is 40 ft in the air, and then cook and can mango jam
• How to build a school out of mud (using only string, a measuring tape, and an old notebook as a straight edge)
• How to plant trees without rain
• How to kill, pluck, and clean a chicken
• How to position rocks on your roof so it doesn’t blow away in a rain storm

 

Things Jim has transported on the back of his bike: at one time  and over 5 km

• 25 meters of metal fencing
• 2 live bunny rabbits in a cardboard box
• 1 full propane tank (100 lbs)
• a huge green suitcase (think of the largest luggage that you can check on a plane)
• 3 flat-rate postal boxes full of American food
• A 6-foot shovel
• A pumpkin
• Countless bags of clothes
• A 5-foot diameter bundle of thorns
• A 13-year old-boy acting as a guide
• A freshly butchered leg of lamb (ok….this one was only 1 km, but it was memorable!)

 

Proudest Accomplishments

• Learning a new language
• Completing 56 Radio Shows about Health, Agriculture, and Education
• Biking 40 km roundtrip just to buy some lettuce so that we could make BLTs with the bacon my mom sent
• Promotion of the 3 Malian food groups, training women to make healthier food for their families, and watching the health of a few children improve
• Growing Sweet Corn during Hot Season and presenting it to a very surprised village chief
• Advocating successfully for the superintendent to send high school teachers to Kongodugu
• Watching our village unite around the idea that they had power to improve their own schools, and subsequently build 3 mudbrick classrooms with only some help from Peace Corps
• James’ sustainable collaboration with his work partner : the fact that he continued the tree-planting project, distributing 2000 trees to 10 villages, without him is just so exciting.
• When our neighbor said “You guys are different, you two are married AND you’re friends. If I get a wife, I’d like her also to be my friend.”
• Baking Applecrisp in a mud oven for James’ 24th birthday.
• Getting everyone in Kongodugu to refer to us as “American” instead of “Toubab”.
• Re-writing the “Ant and the Grasshopper” fable into “The Bee and the Wasp” and broadcasting it to a Malian audience (with rave reviews in return) in order to promote the values of an independent work ethic over dependence on hand-outs.

 

Certainly these are the more positive lists, and those of you who have spoken to us know that we faced quite a few disappointments and challenges while in Mali that are not reflected here. However, with God’s help and the prayers of our family and friends, we do feel that our experience was very positive and taught us so much about development (…more on that later!).

Thanks for reading!

~Joye (& James)

Travel: Istanbul, Turkey

As many of you know, our original close of service date was June 23rd, but was moved up when we were unexpectedly evacuated due to a military coup. It was a stressful and emotional time, as we traveled to Ghana for a post-evacuation transition conference, and tried to figure out logistics like travel plans and where we were going to live and work once we arrived back in the States.  We were exhausted at the thought of planning a vacation on top of everything else we were going through, but we did a little research and decided that we just couldn’t pass up the inexpensive tickets from Accra to Istanbul. James, who had interned for a semester in Rome, had always dreamed of visiting Istanbul, which, like Rome, has visible layers of history. Hence, it was decided: 3 days in Istanbul, then home.

Because, Istanbul has been conquered by different empires throughout history, it is a city of 3 names : Istanbul, Constantinople, and Byzantium. Therefore, it is an amalgamation of cultures and history. We visited the Hagia Sophia, which was the largest building in the world for 1000 years. It was built as a church and later turned into a mosque by the Ottomans, so it has this strange blend of Christian and Islamic art throughout its interior.

The architecture in the city was unbelievable. We visited the underground cisterns which, admittedly, reminded us of the Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings and the famous Blue Mosque. We also climbed the Galata Tower for a great view of the Bosphorus, the river which divides the city. Istanbul is an extremely modern western city with McDonalds, Burger King, and Starbucks all very easy to find. For American friends looking to try out an exotic vacation spot, but worried about choosing something too out of their comfort zone, we highly recommend Istanbul.

One of the most amazing thing about Istanbul, Turkey is that it sits right at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, literally. One side of the river is Europe, and the other side is Asia! As we toured the Topkapi Palace, home to the Ottomans, we were amazed that the treasures and artifacts on display rivaled those of the Louvre. Simply by being in the middle of the two continents, they had treasures from China and  Hungry to Saudi Arabia and England. If you do go, don’t miss out on the jewels and the armory—Amazing.

 

The food was also absolutely delicious, and extremely inexpensive in US standards ($2-4 for a sandwich). The streets smelled of kebabs and everywhere you looked, they were selling Turkish Delight and Baklava. One evening, we treated ourselves to moussakas, fresh hummus, and Anatolian chicken. mmmmmh…. When we weren’t trying the delicious Turkish cuisine, we were often wandering the Grand Bazaar, shopping for souvenirs. We found that speaking Bambara was the perfect way to stump vendors who wanted to hassle us to buy their wares. We would simply speak to each other in Bambara and to the vendor in broken English so they never had any idea we were American or interested in buying anything in their store. It worked great as a bargaining tool, but more importantly allowed us to relax a bit and have fun instead of getting frustrated with the overzealous bargaining. One vendor said, “Oh, I see, you’re Scottish!” haha!

Lastly, we enjoyed wandering the spice markets where the smell of curry, saffron, cumin, and many other spices permeate the air.  Warning: just like the supermarket, don’t go there hungry! (Below Right) We also made sure to take a boat trip and visit Asia for a few minutes.

  

After, returning to the US, we couldn’t believe we had been on 4 continents in one week! But it was certainly worth the effort. We really enjoyed our trip and look forward to visiting the rest of Turkey in the future :)

~Joye (and James)

Update: So What Now?

Last we heard from our intrepid Peace Corps Volunteers, they had just completed their service and were awfully sad about leaving Mali in such an unexpected and unfortunate way. If this were a blog solely about our Peace Corps service, then this would have been the logical, albeit tragic, ending. But even though we have left Africa, life is still proving to be an adventure.

Joye and I have been back in the States for almost a month now, after making a detour on our route home in Istanbul, Turkey (a travel blog on that later). We arrived on a low profile – no Facebook status updates – because we wanted to surprise my brother Ric for his graduation from Alma College. We had told him that we would travel Turkey for a while, and then maybe return to Africa, so he was pleasantly surprised to see us at a reception at President Abernathy’s house. And since Alma College is also our alma mater, we were able to meet and greet with many friends and professors, many of whom followed this blog. Most asked us an obvious question: so what now?

Happy Graduation!

Unlike many volunteers who were evacuated with us, we were already developing a plan for after Peace Corps; after all, we only had a few more months to serve. Avid readers may recall that Joye had interviewed with three pharmacy schools during our brief visit last October. After getting accepted at those schools and two more who interviewed her via Skype, she decided on the PharmD program at University of Kentucky in Lexington; a top-tier school with a dual-degree option for a Master’s in Public Health. The fact that we thought  my job prospects were best there also heavily influenced her decision.

After only a week of being back Stateside, we were bestowed with two major blessings. First, I was offered a job as a research economist for CEDIK (Community and Economic Development Initiative of Kentucky), housed in the University of Kentucky’s agricultural economics department, only a ten-minute walk from the pharmacy school. I been communicating with the department since Joye’s interview there and had applied to the position in early March, but the timing worked out perfectly. I plan on starting in July, hopefully after finishing 95% of my Master’s thesis at Michigan State University.

The second blessing was a house-sitting gig down in Lexington, arranged with the help of a fellow volunteer from Mali, which is giving us two weeks to set up shop. Since then, life has been a stressful and inconsistent whirlwind; we still seem to be living out of a suitcase. We stayed for a week with Joye’s family, then for another week with my family (who are moving themselves), before coming down to Lexington, Kentucky – bluegrass, bourbon, and horse capitol of the world. We have almost secured an apartment, almost secured Kentucky driver’s licenses, and have familiarized ourselves with the area. We even took the time to go see the 25th Anniversary production of “Les Miserables” in Cincinnati!

 

So now that we’re poised to become Kentuckians, are we definitively dismissing Mali? Absolutely not. We have called our work partners Dorro and Rube a few times since returning just to check up on things. Both Kongodugu and Dububa are safe and remain untouched by the horrific events in Mali’s north or in Bamako; one advantage to living in the middle of nowhere. Also, both of our projects are almost finished. Joye’s mud-brick school is near completion after the head mason was delayed with a bout of malaria, and Rube has overseen the distribution of over half of the trees and is waiting until June for the rest to mature. But they miss us, and we miss them, and we even miss their food, which is something I didn’t expect. Indeed, Mali has secured a place in our hearts, and we’ll see if our adventures ever bring us back there one day.

But for now, it’s on to Lexington. Thanks for reading.

-James (& Joye)