Week #8 Celebrating Mali's Independence and Lots of Rock Climbing

On September 21, The Republic of Mali celebrated 48 years of independence. Prior to this time the country had been a French colony since the early 1900s. We decided that we should celebrate the day with a BBQ and African Dance performance at the American Club in Bamako. The Club is at the former site of the Marine House, right on the Niger River , and has great lawn space for playing, the best playground in Bamako, a pool, and a small restaurant. In spite of its name, it is a gathering place for many nationalities and we find ourselves there more often than we would have thought.

Here are the dancers...

And the musicians on drums and balafone.

Randy and Gus check out one of the three large tortoises that wander around the American Club grounds.

Visits to Siby - Climbing and Hiking

The town of Siby, located approx. 50 km Southwest of Bamako is possibly most famous for its huge natural arch and amazing waterfall that are located outside of the town. But Siby's attraction for us has been augmented by near infinite possibilities for rock climbing. The miles of cliffs that surround the town have over 60 bolted "sport" climbs up to three pitches in length, and there are many trad. routes as well, with a range of difficulty up to 5.13 so far.

This has been a huge surprise for us. Although Mali has long been known for its amazing, world-class climbing in the East of the country, mainly the famous "Main de Fatima", we are ecstatic to have so much good climbing so close to Bamako, and it has really changed the equation to have a weekly escape from the city.



Calib Ng on a short "sport" route called "Djincono" 5.10a


Joost Guttinger and Kat Johnson on a route called "Sobeni" 5.9

Most impressive of all is that Siby also has a climbing guide service and a place to rent gear. A few years ago two residents of the town traveled to France for formal training and they have put up many of the harder routes in the area. They even have a small bar/restaurant with good fries!

The hiking at Siby is well-suited for smaller legs, and in addition to the climbing trips, we did another Siby hike with our friends Gunne, Lars, Jacob, Selma and Jonathon.

Looking at the landscape around Siby from the height of the Arch. The road leads to Bamako. Many of the trees are mango trees.

Looking up at the Arch from down among the mangoes and gardens...

AISB BBQ Fun

Following Randy's second day of climbing at Siby , the climbing crew rendezvoused with Stacy, Jenna and Gus at the AISB (American Int'l School of Bamako) Back To School BBQ. Stacy is the Treasurer of the PTO and suddenly up to her elbows in planning events with some of the other moms and dads. The event was held at The American Club. Here are a few pics from the fun.

A LONG wait for cotton candy for a tired little boy! (Note how red his face is when you enlarge this image.) But after the cotton candy he returned to the bouncy house for another round.

Jenna and her friend Ana take a break from the pool.

Week #7 Gus' class learns about "B" and Bogolan cloth

Gus and his classmates in the pre-kindergarten room have busy days. With just 4 hours of class each day, they spend lots time outside riding bikes, playing on the swingset and visiting the three tortoises that live on the playground before they get down to the business of learning about letters and their "specials". Already they have PE class (or BG class as Gus used to call it) twice/week, music class twice/week, computer class once/week and, of course, a weekly visit to the library. Gus explained to us that BG was the class where you throw balls up in the air. The "specials" are all on the elementary school campus so he gets to see Jenna sometimes too. Randy says one of the great benefits of this job is getting to see the kids as they move through the campus during the day.

Every week Gus' class structures a lot of their learning and activities around the letter of the week. For A, they visited the Airport and got to talk with some pilots and check out a plane. At the end of last week, B week, they had a Bogolan cloth artisan come in and show the kids how this special Malian craft is made. Some of you may know this types of cloth as mud cloth.

The traditional method of creating Bogolan begins with processing and weaving 12 cm. plain white cloth strips. These strips are dyed with a brown solution made from Bougalan tree leaves which turns the cloth yellow. The paint used on these cloths is actually mud collected from the deepest sections of ponds. After being collected, the mud ferments in a covered pot for about a year and turns to a deep black color. The designs are drawn on the cloth section with the mud using various width spatulas made of small pieces of Bamboo and flat metal. The cloth is exposed to intense sunlight for a week until the desired whiteness is reached. In normal practice the designs, patterns and motifs have clearly defined names or meanings. Traditionally certain patterns were used to protect women from hostile spiritual forces during transition into adulthood. Other motifs protected women from harm when confronting and killing powerful animals.

The traditional process was simplified for the 3 and 4 year old with the use of stencils and a shortened time for sunlight. But the results were great and Gus is very proud of his masterpiece - soon to be hanging above his bed.

There was talk of bringing a Camel to visit the class for C but looks like it may not work out this time. D for dromedary perhaps?

Week #6 - Stranded on the road to Segou, and a day trip to the cliffs of Sibi

On Friday afternoon we packed our car for a weekend trip to Segou in tandem with a neighborhood family from Germany (Lars, Gunne, Jacob and Selma). Jacob and Selma are the same ages as Jenna and Gus and in spite of a small overlap of common language (they speak German and French fluently) the kids have a ball together. Lars and Gunne have been really helpful in orienting us to the town (you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a map around here) and ideas for exploring beyond Bamako.

Segou was a really appealing destination. It's the third largest town in Mali about 240km northeast of Bamako on the River. The river is central to life here and they offer trips in pirogues to visit fishing villages, as well as serve as a port for the boats that travel the river between Bamako and points north like Mopti. Segou is a real cultural center in Mali with Bogolan cloth artisans, rug makers, potters, and cotton weavers. The town also hosts a music festival which we have heard is fantastic and more Malian-focused than the now famous Festival in the Desert that happens in Timbuktu. To get to Segou there's one road on which it is recommended one travel during daylight as potholes are frequent (especially in rainy season - now), the road is narrow, and big buses and overloaded trucks are the most common fellow-travelers.

Of course getting out of Bamako is always crazy. We are about a week into Ramadan which means that much of the population is fasting from daylight to dusk and moto-drivers are perhaps less predictable even than usual by late afternoon. On the edge of the city we drove through dense concentrations of people at transport hubs (will take a picture of the "Green Machines" with people spilling out all sides soon and so much stuff piled on top that it's amazing they have forward momentum) and then suddenly there was nobody. Green, open countryside stretching to the horizon. Randy says that you know you are out of the city when the concrete block houses turn to mud construction. Not a bad delineation actually.

We were all starting to feel relaxed and excited for the weekend when Randy noticed a problem - we were losing fourth gear ability, and third gear ability... Yes the transmission which Randy has had some concerns about and talked to the school mechanics about was nearly non-functioning. So much for the mechanics' reassurance that this trip would be no problem. We told our friends that we would turn around and go back while we could (and in daylight) and they would continue on to Segou to arrive before dark. But when we turned around it was all Randy could do to coax the car to move. Of course we were out of cell phone range and an unknown number of kms from the toll road gate and it was starting to pour. We continued on at inchworm speed until the car would continue no longer. Luckily on enough of a hill that my cell could pick up a signal. It was about a bit before 5pm when the School Director told Randy he would send the same mechanics mentioned above out to pick us up. It took them over 3 hours to get there - 3 long hours as Jenna worried how we would sleep in the car, Randy enjoyed the silence of the countryside and the chance to talk Fufaldi with some boys biking by with their milk cans tied to the back of their bikes, and Stacy hoped we would get picked up before dark so that the massive vehicles roaring down the narrow road could see us and avoid rear-ending us. A beautiful place, truly in the wilderness if only 60 miles from the center of Bamako, but not a great place to be stranded with two little kids on a dark, rainy night. Ultimately the mechanics did come and we were back in our Bamako beds by 10:30. Segou will wait for another weekend and a different, reliable car.

The Director told us to use the school van for the weekend if we wanted to try to find a different adventure a little closer to home. So Sunday morning we picked up another family (Lynn and George are teachers at AISB and their kids Dan, Lucas, and Rachel are a bit older than our kids and pros at this oversea life having lived in Sierra Leone a couple years back when their parents taught at a school there) and hit the road again. Destination this time was Sibi, southwest of Bamako by a little over an hour. Sibi is well-known for its enormous groves of mango trees and some beautiful rock formations which attract climbers and hikers. Randy, of course, had Sibi on his radar screen long before we arrived. We had been warned that the road might be dicey after rainy season. Sounds familiar, eh? However, turns out that the road is being replaced right now and much of the drive was on lovely smooth roads that make I-89 in Vermont feel like a logging road.

When we got to Sibi we drove through the main town and continued a few minutes to where an arch we had heard about could be seen. We decided to pull over and hike up toward the arch. Randy thought we could find a local child to show us the way for a few CFA. Needless to say, the minute we got out of the car we were surrounded by kids eager to help, but for a pretty steep fee. Randy wrangled with them for a few minutes during which time they assured us that there was no formal guide requirement to hike here and named a pretty high fee. We told them we would go without a guide and began to hike. After a while, they decided that 1500 CFA (About $3 US) would be fair after all and there was some joking around about who among the ~8 of them would get the money.

The hike wasn't too long, but quite hot in the mid-day sun. The formations are quite amazing though, and Randy was excited to check them out. A few of the routes are bolted for climbing and the school actually brings the 5-6 grade classes out later in the year. We were at the wrong angle to capture the arch in a photo, but the group pics are underneath the arch. Am sure we will be back. Our kids definitely have climbing genes in them!

When we drove back through the main town an elder stopped us to let us know that in fact there was a formal guide requirement in town that the boys had neglected to mention. Not a lot of cars of white people in town so easy to find us. The town collects the money for town projects. We will return another time to visit an amazing waterfall areas off-road that the school van couldn't access, and promised the elder that we would seek out the formal guides. This seemed to please him.

Week #5 Music Time

One evening a Tuareg/Fulani man named Moussa stopped by our house playing a traditional "hoddu." This instrument has only three strings and is similar to a banjo in the way that it is strung. They have a carved wooden back with some sort of hide covering the front. The neck is a fretless smooth tree branch with leather string used to keep the appropriate string tension.

After about an hour of negotiation in Fulfulde we came to an agreement on a price of 22,500 cfa ($48), which includes two one-hour lessons, and two small leather Tuareg boxes for the kids! As you can imagine, we are rejoycing that the dollar is a bit higher this week!




















On other fronts, both Jenna and Gus continue to make good use of our pool. Jenna is now regularly swimming in the deep end of the pool all by herself, and Gus has become much more comfortable in the water using his innertube.

We have talked to some of you about how the recent influx of small motorcycle scooters have made driving in Bamako complete chaos. So we were shocked to see problems with circulation have spilled over into the tricycle lane at Gus' preschool!





















Stay tuned.... we will be traveling down river to the market town of Segou this weekend!

Randy, Stacy, Jenna, and Gus

Week #4 - A visit to Yirimadjo. The Swimmers.

As we got ready to head to Bamako we were reminded how small the world really can be by friends who sent us names of people they knew in Bamako or larger Mali who would be happy to help get us oriented, etc. One of these connections is Kat Johnson. Kat came to Mali in May to spend a year working with a project on the outskirts of Bamako in a town called Yirimadjo. The project was started several years ago by a group of Brown University grads and has three main components: 1) to help expand the facilities of a medical clinic that serves that district of Bamako; 2) to train women as community health workers with a strong emphasis on malaria prevention in kids under the age of 5, and; 3) to help develop women's cooperatives through microfinance and other training. See the project web-site at www.projectmuso.org/programs/malaria to learn more.

We got in touch with Kat not long after we arrived and she and friend/colleague Mary Virginia, a third year Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali, came in for dinner and a swim one night. This past weekend they invited us out to see the new clinic which the project has built, to meet Kat's host family, and to take a hike in the hills behind her house. We took lots of pictures during our adventure...

The grand opening of the new clinic takes place this Saturday! While we were there, they were painting the signs on the building. There are two other buildings already at the site but it was clear they need more space. While touring near the maternity area, we were invited in to see a newborn and his proud mama. It was her first baby and he was literally hours old. Jenna and Gus were awestruck. We also met some of the doctors and nurses outside. Mary Virginia joined them for a picture outside the clinic.

Tu veut la cassette? Moin cher! Moin cher! We are an obvious target for anyone trying to sell goods by the side of the road. Sometimes they are cards with extra minutes for your cell phone, and often they are cassettes. While we were at the Clinic Randy's entrepreneurial instincts kicked in and he decided to start a side business selling pirated cassette tapes in the market to make a bit of extra money. Unfortunately, the lady in this photo would only trade some of her peanuts! It was a short-lived business.

We drove to Kat's house for lunch. Her host family had prepared a huge lunch of traditional "Zame" with fish for us during our visit. Her host-mother Coro and sister Awa served the lunch. Although the food was amazing, Jenna wanted nothing to do with it.. Gus found eating a bit challenging with a moto helmet on his head!


Kat's host brother was excited to show us the animals which live in the compound - hawks, a tortoise, and sheep.

Lots of local kids popped in for a glimpse of us. Jenna and Gus aren't quite sure what to make of this kind of attention...

Kat and her host-mother Coro. In addition to being a wonderful cook and very welcoming to Kat, Coro is also a facilitrice/teacher for the Community Health Workers portion of the project.

After eating, we took a hike in the hills above Kat's house. Her host-brother was happy to lead us up the trail and then across the open rock. Here's a view looking down on the town of Yirimadjo from the hills above.

Randy couldn't resist trying a few bouldering moves, and Gus was carefully watching each movement.

Even on a hike in the bush, Gus is always in the mood for making funny faces! "Hey Dad, look at this face!"

Although the feminist movement has been slow to reach the Sahel, the proliferation of small grain grinding machines like the one in this photo free women from what would otherwise be hours of labor pounding grain with a mortar and pestle.



Some photos of our house in Bamako .... Wait a minute..that doesn't look like a mud hut!




Swimmers

The kids are spending more time in the water then they ever have before - and it shows! Jenna is turning into a mermaid - swimming all the way across the pool "even when it's over your head"! Both kids start swimming lessons next week as part of their after-school activities.