An update on life in general

Are these kind of posts boring?

I thought maybe it was necessary as I haven’t been very communicative with the outside world of late!

So since my last post (I mean not my very last post but the one before) my boyfriend Josiah and his friend Tom came to visit Africa and we went on a Jolly tour around Mali with my house friend from Kankan Kristin, and another friend from Edinburgh called Wendy. We stopped in Sevarre, the Dogon Country, Douentza, Timbucktu, Mopti and Djenne.

The Dogon Country was probably one of the main highlights. The Dogon County is a series of steep escarpments in Eastern Mali, inhabited by the charasmatic Dogon people who’s villages nest in the clifts, and was once inhabited by the mythical Tellem, whose dwellings remain in impossible locations, some of which no-one has been able to get to still.

The lowlight for me was Djenne, I have nothing against Djenne except that it was the place that Josiah suddenly turned green and collapsed in the middle of the market, and was ill for the rest of the day giving me quite the fright!

Also (notice how I took my time to get to this), Josiah proposed when we were in Sevarre, and I said yes, making us now engaged. We’re hoping to get married in early January if we can sort it out. Please pray for us, as we have left ourselves little time and not much money, pray especially for poor Josiah who will be doing most of the legwork while I’m in Africa!

A desert adventure

I read somewhere that the hospitality of desert peoples is remarkable, because they know if they find someone stranded in the desert that person may not survive until any other help comes. We found this to be true on our camel trek. The plan was to go out for a few hours and stay overnight in a Taureg encampment.

The Taureg don’t have the best reputation, they can be difficult and violent, and their rebellion against the State of Mali is causing unsettlement in the North. For me their dangerous reputation, nomadic lifestyle and fashionable head scarves gave them an air of romance. It was all going well, we were plodding along, chatting with the guide that spoke French, learning some Tamashek words.

After a while we spotted a dust cloud on the horizon, between us and the civilisation of Timbuktu. Over the next hour it got closer and closer until it engulfed us. It was hard for us to gauge whether it was a dangerous situation or not, our guides told us it was fine, it was a gift for us, while steadily picking up the pace. It became clear that we weren’t going to get to the encampment before the storm reached us, so it was a strangely slow race to the first Taureg tent we came across. As it reached us we couldn’t see the top, I don’t know how high it was, only very. When we got close to a tent we got of the camels an ran. With Indiana Jones style timing it hit just as we got in the tent, me and Wendy at the back getting hit slightly.

The tent didn’t hold up well against the storm, bits of it blew of and sand billowed in covering us as we sat with our scarves over our faces, the sky gone prematurely dark from all the sand. After a while we were encouraged to run to the next tent, which was a much more sturdy construction, maybe 20 metres long. It had rugs on the floor and a fire in the middle, a family presided by the elderly Ibrahim welcomed us shyly. Over the evening others came in from the storm also, and it got to be more of a party atmosphere as people grew less weary of the strangers. Our meal of roasted sheep was dragged through the desert for us, it was extremely sandy but we and our new friends enjoyed it. We talked about Taureg culture, the nomadic lifestyle, marriage rituals; drank strong, sweet gunpowder tea.

As the hours went by the storm went down and we bedded down for the night outside, by then cool and calm, the sky was clear as we slept under the stars.

An update on the random music: So it turns out that it may have been some kind of pagan ritual, and I’ve been dancing along oblivious, what an idiot!

The last few weeks there have been randomly teenage boys playing drums outside my next door neighbours’ house. The ladies spontaneously start dancing around in a circle and then men sit and watch. People here love, and I mean love music so it didn’t seem too out of character.

If I came along just to listen I wouldn’t be left alone until I joined the dance, if I asked why they were playing I would be told it was just for fun, and one of my neighbours who’s a Christian seemed happy for me to dance too so I went right ahead.

Was pretty fun and simple and I’ve been working on being more willing to make a fool of myself. I see willingness to make a fool of oneself as a very important skill, especially for language learning and evangelism, and probably life in general. I also been trying to spend more time with my neighbours as recently, I’ve felt like I’ve been to busy to come and greet them often, something a good Maninka is supposed to make time for.

Then I started hearing of fertility rites that are going on in the villages around Kankan, they centre around the whole village coming around to kill some fish and dance for the local djina (spirits/demons). Even though Upper Guinea is a Muslim area, such things are extremely prevalent and powerful.

So last time they were dancing one of the girls turned to me and said ‘so are you coming tomorrow?’ turns out they have been practicing for one of those in a nearby village, so this wasn’t the ritual itself but getting ready for it. I was off to Bamako that day so I didn’t have to worry about whether to go or not. Maybe I’ll be more careful in future!

Birthday

Hello, thanks for birthdays messages etc.

 

I’m not very good at having birthdays away from home. This is my third one, the first was my 19th, in Nepal, I went white water rafting, which actually was pretty fun, but wasn’t with anyone I had known more than a couple of weeks.

 

The second was my 24^th, which was spent in Kenya, I’d only been there a month and people didn’t seem to celebrate birthdays (I had no ex-pat friends there), I didn’t want people to feel that they had to celebrate mine so I just didn’t tell a soul and got thoroughly depressed.

 

So my third was my 26^th (yeah I know, getting pretty aged now), spent in Guinea. Guineans don’t often celebrate birthdays either, even if they know when their birthday is. Missionaries do though, although they have to be a bit creative. A bit of a dampener was put on things by the bad timing of my friends Brad and Heather, who left to go back to America on the morning of my birthday L

 

It was a fairly normal day, the rains are getting ready to come, not enough for our well to start filling up, but enough to cool us off when they come. It rained just long enough to fill up my buckets and then stopped without disturbing too much (if Guineans make an appointment then it starts raining, it gets cancelled even if the rain is light). So I taught two people in the morning and then had a team meeting in the afternoon. I lead the devotional time and made it short, and then we didn’t have much business to discuss so the party could start.

 

We had a bbq, which meant much more effort than at home as both burgers and buns need to be home made. And cake, and playing taboo, and presents. Long term missionaries, when coming out, need to pack enough stuff for a few years worth of random people’s birthdays, its stuff like that that I hadn’t thought about. Us short termers don’t think of such things so we must improvise. So my presents ranged from the useful (shower gel, teapot, salsa mixes) to the bizarre (a headband made from the leg of one guys jeans, a picture of Bill Clinton).

 

My main present will of course come in a little over a week. It’ll be man sized and decorated with an attractive beard. The plan is to have a week’s holiday in Mali, heading in the direction of Timbuktu, and then return to Kankan where there’s now lots of people who are waiting to meet him.

Random music

Yesterday morning around seven I started hearing singing. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, I went out into the street to see if my neighbours were doing anything special. I couldn’t see signs of anything so I asked someone, then I looked up and noticed that five men were atop a massive cellphone / radio mast. They were fixing something on it. I’m not good at guessing distances but I’d guess that they were about 100 metres up, but as I say I’m not good at guessing heights. They were singing one of those chorus you get here where one guy sings and then the others chime in repeating the same verse, which enables people to just make up songs as they go. They continued to sing all morning until I went out and were singing still when I returned in the afternoon. It was so hot yesterday I couldn’t believe that they’re have the energy to sing all day when they’re right up there in the full blown sun but there they were, I guess they were signing to cheer each other up.

My neighbourhood’s been pretty musical recently. As well as this a band of teenage boys have started drifting about with massive ‘gimbi’ drums and a thing like a cow bell and amusing us all in afternoons. People stop what they’re doing to listen or dance in the street, its pretty fun. I just thought I’d share that with you guys.

On Water

If I have ever taken water for granted, I don’t think I’ll be able to anymore. Our well doesn’t have enough water for it to come from our pipes. Luckily, for the moment at least, it is still slightly below the ‘water table’ (if there is any geologists reading this can you kindly explain to me how this stuff works?). We are able to pump a few buckets everyday use, apart from this being a bit of a hassle we able to get by ok if we’re careful.

 

Today another missionary came by with a water trailer. His house is in a part of town that has city water. It is closer to the river and also to the military base, so they often have water. Using this trailer some pipes and a petrol powered pump (also some creative use of plastic bags and rubber straps for joining things together) he was able to pump some water into our water tower, which should last at least a few days. This part of town hasn’t had city water for 4 years. And no there hasn’t been a war, although I’m not going to comment on why infrastructure in Guinea seems to be getting worse.

 

It’s now hot season and will be at least a month before the rains come, then the water table will be high enough for our well to function normally. I once heard someone describe the weather this season thus: you know if you’ve been somewhere on a hot day and left your car without shade and when you first open it up its quite grossly hot, well that’s Kankan. Due to this if I could I’d take about five showers a day and wash my clothes after half a days wear, with our water situation that’s not quite possible. It’s gonna be an interesting and fragrant month!

A change of direction

 

I’ve had a slight change in direction recently, as I’ve written about in previous blogs about a lack of literacy in my Guinean friends, emanating at least partly in the fact that all schooling here is in French and many don’t understand French. Whilst I don’t think that literacy is the only thing that’s important, and I wouldn’t like to push a western overemphasis on literacy, I’ve been more and more convicted about how a person’s life can be improved of they can read and write.

 

So I decided after some thought that I should try to help some people to read in their own language, in the hope that they themselves will go on to teach others.

 

My language coach, Joe, has been very supportive of this as he and his wife also have a passion for literacy. I have thus embarked on trying with my still fairly inadequate Maninka to teach people to read and write Maninka. Once I made it known that I wanted to do this, six people came forward and said they wanted to be taught to read. Half of them are christians, which hadn’t been the plan, but I see it as a way that I can strengthen and encourage the local church as this will help those people’s spiritual growth and general personal growth. Also, it’s inevitable that the demand would be highest amongst Christians as they have an incentive to learning in that they want to read the scriptures (one of the small selection of books currently available in Maninka).

 

I have the help of a good primer and teachers manual (both in Maninka), so far it’s been stressful but fun, and somehow harder if the person actually knows somethings already, as I find it hard to know where to start without either patronising them or giving them tasks that are way too hard. I’ve bought myself a big black board which helps me feel like a proper teacher. Three of my pupils are middle age ladies who have never been to school. It’s wonderful seeing their confidence grow as before they thought that they couldn’t learn at all.

 

I’m also teaching one person English, Daniel, who is the admin assistant for the SIM office and its hoped over time will take over more and more of the admin for SIM’s ministry in Kankan, and helping several others informally.

 

I’ve gone from being pretty relaxed to having extremely busy days! I’m hoping that’s some excuse for never going to the internet café anymore?

Maninka muso

You may not know this, but I’m now a proper Maninka muso, this is because I can carry a bucket of water on my head. This is with hands though, which has disappointed some, but must point out that I’ve never seen anyone carry water without at least one hand, something lighter like oranges can just balance on the head but water cannot. So everyday I’d go up to the local pump and wait my turn until I could pump out my bucket (hand pump not foot pump). This is pretty hard on the arms but not a hard as getting it up on the head. It’s even harder to getting it down without spilling. Once it’s up its much easier than carrying in the arms, I just need to go slowly and try not to spill any. I always spill a little, but it’s ok as there’s a lot in there and it’s quite hot now so a bit of a shower is nice.

On a side note, when I was at the pump one time I was playing with someone’s baby and it peed all over me. Everyone thought that was very funny, and they said it was good luck, that when I go back to America (I’ve given up trying to tell people that I’m not American) I’ll have lots of babies, so I guess that’s ok.

I’ve generally been trying to find ways to serve people and become part of the community when I can’t have a proper conversation with them yet. This generally includes helping out with whatever people are doing. I don’t kid myself that my efforts seriously deplete the work load, but people seem to enjoy seeing me try! Women in the village are always working (women do most of the heavy work, so they tend to be way stronger than the men). People here are generally quite encouraging of this.

I kind of want to show that I’m not above that kind of work, as they think that white people are. People have a really low view of manual labour, especially farming, and will do anything else if they get the chance. This is a shame as many of these things (gold mining, gambling and theft) are not as helpful to society. If no-one farms then no-one can eat!

nb: 26/06/08 I edited the title as I’ve been told its best not to put place names in the blog.

N to le Fanta Kaba

This means ‘my name is Fanta Kaba’ for those of you who weren’t aware that this was my name, yes it is just like the pop! I got it almost immediately and everyone except the other missionaries call me it, so it feels like my real name now just as much as my birth name. Maninka people seem completely unable so say even simple western names, so everyone needs a Maninka name here. I guess it’s like us and Chinese names.

 

I was named by my guard, Mamadi Kaba (he guards the compound that the guesthouse and office is in, I don’t have a personal bodyguard!), who called me Kaba so I’d be in his family and Fanta as that was just the first girls name that came into his head.

 

Fanta is derived from Fatima, which was the name of the prophet’s daughter. Kaba means corn or rock and is the main family here in Kankan. The Kabas are called the ‘Maninka Mori’ Mori is a Muslim teacher, so I’m supposed to know the Koran really well and speak really good Maninka :-S

 

The only problem is that Fanta is probably the most common girl’s name, and Kaba one of the biggest families, so being called Fanta Kaba is kind of like being called Jane Smith. For someone used to having a relatively unusual name I find it very hard being so ordinary!

 

One good thing is that I have so many Tomas. A toma is someone with the same name as you, and you’re supposed to have a special relationship with them and call them N’toma instead of their name, so I have lots of special friends without trying!

31/01/2008

Sorry for the lack of postage in a while, I never seem to get to the internet café anymore!

 

31/01/2008

 

Just got back from the third trip to Bamako, this one was to attend a ‘training of trainers’ in community health evangelism. This is a way for Christians to be able to reach out to the whole person, so is a way of integrating spiritual and physical teachings. The spiritual teaching is based on the bible; the physical teaching being about community development, prevention of diseases, how to get access to clean water etc. It’s basically a programme of teaching people about how to look after themselves and their community better. The idea is simple, that Jesus cured the whole person, so we should be looking to do so also.

 

I would have liked to not even separate the spiritual and physical, as I think this is often an unhelpful distinction, many of our problems are not one thing or the other but overlap these categories. However, I haven’t worked out a practical way of teaching these things that way yet. In the mean time this seemed like a good thing to find out about.

 

20 of us came for the teaching, which was over three days. We all stayed out of town, it was a bit of a shock when we first got there as the guest house we usually stay at in Bamako is something of a treat, having hot showers and internet. This place didn’t even have sheets on the bed! It was defiantly rustic. I made sheets from two lappas (wrap skirts that they wear here) and a pillow from a towel. Besides a few from Korea, the rest of the group were African, and didn’t seem to mind this so I just ignored it and after the first day it was fine.

 

The teaching was all in French, which was something of a challenge, as my French was quite literally horrible. But I think I learnt a lot about teaching through being at that disadvantage. The lessons that were very participatory and had lots of examples I understood really well, the ones that were more just talking I didn’t follow well at all. Teaching here needs to be accessible to those who have never been to school so find lessons difficult, so I definitely feel like I know better know what kind of things would make that easier.

 

It also allowed me to feel somewhat in solidarity with those of the group who only spoke Bambara, and was encouraged that I could understand bits of Bambara as it’s quite similar to Maninka.

 

In this term here I won’t have time to start a proper CHE programme, as it goes over many years. Beth, who’s a nurse here, will be starting a new programme in a group of villages, and there’s also talk of the Maninka fellowship being able to apply some of these things as a community service.