juliagladys

Maid of Honor Toast

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 06:16:06 GMT

The week before I joined the Peace Corps, Anna called me and told me she had met someone hiking. I knew immediately that this was trouble. Throughout my two years abroad I heard snippets of how Anna and Rob's relationship was getting more and more serious. First they were spending a lot of time together, then they were living together, and then they had developed a new dialect of English that only the two of them understood. It wasn't until I was told by my mother that Anna and Rob were hosting Thanksgiving at their house for both my and Rob's parents that I really freaked out. The shock of Thanksgiving threw me off far more than the announcement of their engagement, which I also received in Africa.

Shortly after the news of Anna and Rob's engagement I went to visit a Peace Corps friend that lived in Dogon country, an area of Mali where the people live up in the cliffs. Her host dad is able to tell the future by reading cowry shells. He offered to read our shells for one dollar each. During my turn he asked me what was on my mind. I asked if I was going to find a job when I returned to America in a month and other mediocre questions. He assured me that everything was going to be ok in America as I adjusted to finding work and my future. He told me I was troubled about something else and to ask him what was really on my mind.

I told him, in my best Bambara, which was then translated into Dogon, that my little sister was going to get married and I wanted to know if this marriage was going to work, if she was making the right decisions. His answer was a little unclear, maybe because it was translated twice before it got to me, but I did understand that I had now somehow put the success of your marriage on my own shoulders. The old man told me that to insure for a happy marriage, not that it wouldn't have been otherwise, I must go and buy some sogo sogo bon bons (literally cough candy) and give them to kids I was to meet on the street.

I stepped off the airplane with the remaining two sogo sogo bon bons, intending to give them to you right now. I thought it would be so clever, at this moment to pull out this African magic that encompassed all marital bliss in the form a menthol candy. But ten months later, I've had the chance to get to know Rob and Anna as "Rob and Anna" and not just the Anna I knew before, and those little sogo sogo bon bons have lost all their appeal for me. What can an inanimate cough drop do for Rob and Anna that they haven't already done for each other? How can an African cough drop insure commitment, respect, patience, friendship, or love? It doesn't even help with coughs! So forgive me for doubting you. I see now that you don't need the assistance foreign witchcraft in your marriage because you have everything you need in each other.

I cry on holidays

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:07:28 GMT

I cry on holidays. This is not something I that has started recently. I remember distinctly as a preteen, post Christmas present opening, I would go to my room and bawl, not because I didn't get what I wanted, but because I was that person that was upset because I was upset that I didn't get what I wanted or that I didn't want what I got. I was hard on myself for being self-centered enough to let something like a sweater upset me. Think of all those with out, I'd tell myself. Or why are you acting so spoiled.

But now, I've traveled. I've lived abroad. I know how much I personally need to get by or survive and honestly feel that I want to keep my life simple. So why am I crying today on Thanksgiving? I'm crying because I've realized that my family is not really in tune to what I feel important. Suddenly I’ve been pulled from my world of simplifying life, focusing completely on self improvement, and reintroduced into what America tells American are pressing issues: being the first in line at the post-Thanksgiving day sales, whether all the guests have a “real” wine glass, ridiculous things that (for me) don’t matter at all. How can everyone be caught up in all that hype? Can’t people see that it is just marketing? It is just companies telling individuals that this or that is important just so they can sell it.

I had different expectations for my Thanksgiving. I thought it was going to be more of a family bonding, like those of my childhood, than an extension of consumerism. I thought we could block out all the advertisements and media, but instead a place, with “real” wine glasses, was set at the table for them.

These issues are ones that I have most likely overlooked in the past, but they really bothered me this year because 1) I had just returned from Mali, and 2) I was really sad that I no longer have any grandparents. Maybe in the past, I was focusing on my family more because the hub was there. We would come together for my grandfather. I am disappointed that the bond within that side of my family died with my grandfather. My father did not even call either of his siblings to tell them he was coming to Denver. I don’t understand that.

In Mali there is no term for cousins. Extended family falls under your brother or sister, this even extends to neighbors. Aunts are mothers, uncles are fathers.

I’d like to see more cohesion within my family like that. But I realized that my priorities are different, due to my time in Mali, I am able to label what exactly they are. And because my family doesn’t share these priorities, because my aunt is busy putting pre-made pies in the oven according to her schedule, because I feel estranged, because my grandfather isn’t around to bring us together, I cried on Thanksgiving.

On being home

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:00:28 GMT

I've been back in the states for two weeks. I keep intending to sit down and right something meaningful and profound to wrap up my Peace Corps experience, but in all honestly, I keep getting distracted by all bells and whistles that are distracting about American life. And I've hardly left my house. The internet, for one, can waste hours of your day and years of your life. Suddenly you come to and wonder where your day went?

I know I have interesting things to say about being back, but they are laying dormant inside until all the frenzy of interstate highways, dvds, iphones, youtube, endless cheese options, hummer limos, microwave buttons, and automatic coffee makers. Then maybe I'll be able to put what I feel to words. I know I want to. I know I should (Dell basically gave me an assignment to do so). Just know things are different here.

An article I wrote for the PC Mali newsletter

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:04:31 GMT

“Somebody Poisoned the Water Hole!”
How PCVs Can Get Involved with Guinea Worm Eradication in Mali

Earlier this year everyone in Peace Corps Mali was a buzz about going to Gao to fight the fearsome guinea worm. PCVs had jumped on the guinea worm boat in a big way and were just waiting for Peace Corps to tell us what the deal was. However, due to lack of clarity regarding what to expect between PCVs from the bureau, Peace Corps from the Carter Center and vice versa, nothing really happened. If going on a guinea worm trip is something you are interested in, it is still possible, you'll just have to take things into your own hands, which is exactly what Sarah “Juicy” Zuger, Rachel Emmick, and I did.

Back in the day guinea worm was quite widespread, reaching all the way to Europe. Interestingly enough, the snake on a stick symbol that is used today in the medical field originates from healers’ signs depicting place to come for guinea worm extraction. Today, guinea worm cases are decreasing as organizations, such as the Carter Center, fight to stop transmission. Mali is one of the few remaining countries in the world with guinea worm cases, mostly in the Douentza, Gao, and Kidal areas.

For those of you who have not yet read Where There is No Doctor from cover to cover, guinea worm is transmitted by ingesting drinking water contaminated by guinea worm eggs. When an infected person enters the water source, the worm pokes out of the wound it creates and sprays its eggs into the water. Water fleas, acting as the primary host, pick up the eggs. The eggs cause the fleas to become lethargic and float to the surface of the water hole. That way, when someone new comes to drink from that water source, they scoop the surface water, including the tiny fleas, and ingest the worm eggs. The worm takes around 9-12 months to develop. A painful sore or blister forms, usually on the lower part of the body, and the worm will poke out when it senses water to continue the lifecycle.

The Carter Center doctors and staff are working to eradicate guinea worm in Mali in three main ways: distributing cloth water filters that catch the infected flea, chemical treatment of contaminated water sources, and isolating current cases to ensure they do not contaminate water sources. Guinea worm can be easily avoided if everyone in the area follows one or more of the above guidelines. If infected people stay out of the water, or if everyone agrees to filter their water it will break the guinea worm lifecycle. But as an extra measure of safety, the Carter Center also puts a chemical called “Abate” in the water holes to kill the water fleas.

Treatment for someone hosting guinea worm is simple, yet painful and slow. Once the worm sticks out of the wound it should be tied to a string or a small stick and slowly pulled out. This process may happen quickly or over a week. The worm can be more than a meter long! It is important that this process happens slowly and thoroughly because serious infection may result if the worm is broken. Also, it is very painful for the patient if the worm is forced out more than it is willing to yield.

PCV roles on guinea worm trip is mostly observation, assistance handing out filters, and making calculations on the quantity of chemical to be put in any given water hole in order to make sure the local Malians aren’t putting to much in, which they usually are. Marcus also suggests that if Peace Corps wants to get involved in a big way we can set up “guinea worm week” in more permanent communities, especially around the Douentza area. Ideally PCVs would go house to house handing out filters and teaching about the importance of avoiding or filtering contaminated water and conversely, not contaminating water if you have the worm.

If you do want to go on a guinea worm mission, you can expect, judging from our trip, to have an awesome experience. Though the days were long, it was the highlight of my Peace Corps career. I felt like I finally made it to that romanticized Africa you always see on TV. Expect to get up early to a huge breakfast of greasy spaghetti and a tabaski amount of “bush meat,” drive, en brusse, to the most remote villages (not even huts, just stick support structures with leather hide tarp) you’ve ever been in your life, see camels, hand out filters, poison water holes, hunt antelope and utards (giant birds) from a land rover, drink cow, goat, and camel milk, meet the most hard core and rustic people in the world, extract some guinea worm (if your lucky), see incredible sunsets, eat a dinner of greasy zamé and another tabaski amount of meat, and do some awesome star gazing. Just remember to bring what you need for bedding, maybe a mattress if you have one, something for rain, wind, and chill. And don’t worry if you don’t speak French. The three of us got along fine without it (the doctors all speak Bambara as a first language). I highly recommend you all take advantage of this opportunity as, Inshallah, guinea worm will soon be extinct. It really is an opportunity of a lifetime.

Bonya Binna (Respect Fell/Failed)

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:34:47 GMT

It is hard for me to accept the fact that the Malians I repect are promiscous, men and women alike. I want to believe that those I look up to have the same standards as I do. This causes me to reevaluate what I consider to be my standards. Does this bother me because Mali supposedly has a conservative muslim culture. I don’t think it would be so bad if they were unmarried, but these Malian men, even with their two plus wives are still hanging around with younger girls and I want to believe thay are just good friends with these young ladies, but I know there is no such thing as “just food friends” between men and women in Mali. Or there is, but it usually involves sex.

Yesterday my homologue took me to see his new house. I like and repect my homologue, I’ll admit I even had a crush on him. He never really treated me sleazy like a lot of Malian men would and have. I respected him all the more for that. He just got married a couple weeks ago. I went to meet his wife, see his house, and gossip about work counterparts. It was a nice time and all, even though his wife wasn’t super friendly toward me or said anything or even smiled at me.

After that we stopped by the hospital to pick up something and Daffe (my homologue) walks up to this girl he obviously knows and starts chatting away. The girl stands up and takes his hand and they stand there talking hand in hand. I was very uncomfortable. I wanted to say: please, be professional! I don’t want to think less of you because of what I’m seeing right now. When we left the hospital to take me home we saw the same girl again and stopped to talk to her again, erasing all doubt in my mind that something was going on between them.

A similar fall from grace happened to me before in Diabaly when my friend Abba came back from a month in Bamako, the capital. We were talking about all the clubs we like to go to when he comes out with how great it is to be at the club with three hot girls sitting around him. Then he tells me think thinks me teammate Sarah is hot (a ka kalan deh!).

Abba is a father figure to me; hearing about his promenades in Bamako was bad enough. It was so much worse seeing him in action, in Diabaly, in his own house, in front of his wife and kids. It made me sick. Anyway, there was definately something going on between him and a neighbor girl. We would all be at this house watching TV and his conversation/explaination was targeted just for her. Any time a team scored a goal or anything noteworthy happened in the latin soap opera, he would use it as an excuse to touch her. I was uncomfortable for his wife, but she just sort of pretended like she was being the family friend she was. What else could she do?

Even my supervisor, when she came to visit me, flirted shamelessly with my male co-workers. Is it too much to ask for a so called professional to act that way? Do they think that Americans have looser standards, judging by what they’ve seen on TV, and as a result feel they can be more open with me? Or is that just the way Mali is and I’m overly sensitive about it?

Whatever the situation may turn out to be, I still don’t want to believe that these professionals, father figures, mentors, and supervisors aren’t any different from the common Malian sleaze balls I have to deal with on a daily basis.

ps

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:05:14 GMT

We just got our COS (Close of Service) dates. Looks as though I'll be here until November 2.

Return trip to Diabaly (June 29)

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:02:47 GMT

I am remembering all the things I love, and left because of about Diabaly. I arrived last night after waiting for a mobili from 3pm to 7pm. Once we finally left, I tried to think of an explitave to express the frustrations i felt from being jerked around by prantigis and then remembering my fear of the muddy Diabaly road. I decided on strong enough had not yet been invented. I was trying to fight back the waves of nausea just long enough to vomit outside the bashe while convincing myself that the trip was going to be worth it.

This morning I woke upto the giddy giggling of disbelief and excited whispers of "Kumba Nana!" by my favorite kids. It is only 10am but we have already had a great time together. Some things are just like when I left. Papa still follows me around like a puppy, which I love, and have to admit is probably the main reason I went back, Dada still knows our secrethandshake and Le Vieux stills knows "Flea-Fly-Flo."

Some things have changed too. Abba lost a tooth (the front one) and his electricity, and Papa has some weird eye boil infection. Other people live in my house and there is a cell phone tower one block away from it.

Although the flies here are bad, not to mention the mosquitoes, and the sewage mud is well on its way to taking over the roads, the connections I have made there are the most genuine. I am Diabaly Ka yere yere yere yere. Here I'm seen as a daughter and friend, not a status symbol. They ask me how Markala is and it is fine. I've realized working in Mali is not like working in America (duh!) no matter how structured the organization, and that perhaps I lack the iniative to "do projects" with so much flexibility.

Anyway, Diabaly people are the ones that have given me the highlights of a cliche rrewarding Peace Corps experience and I love them for that.

June 30

I just went to market with Papa. His mom gave him 25 CFA to spend however he wanted. He decided to buy a single teabag. it is so cute how very excited he is about his solitary teabag.

June 20 meditations

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:45:30 GMT

The Niger is my peace. It is where I can be myself again. No longer am I "Toubaboo" or "Kumba Bah," just Julia-who-sits-in-nature.

From my perch I can watch my daily hassles drive by with only the quietest whisper of diesel engine. I can see the gendarme points, but don't have to think about how they all want to marry me, or at least get a poke. Instead I can focus on the fishing pirogues that silently drift back and forth as if they were merely the shadow of a large bird on the water. I can focus on the small flock of goats ( 5 white, 3 brown, 3 black) sweep the area for edible treasures. The Fulani shepard pops from shade tto spot of shade, keeping a careful watch, although non-chalant in manner.

I wonder about this bench I'm sitting on. Every time I come to this spot I see it, but never anyone else. It seems forgotten. Like me, it is out of place here. The roughness of the sawmarks makes the cruelty of cutting a living tree down, mutilating it until it is reshaped into a bench, all the more realisitic.

Why is this useful bench going unused? Especially after the transformation of its "real" figure into utilitarian form?I could start listing our various similarities, me an the bench: rough around the edges, scarred up by Mali, simple, yet useful. But really we are misfits. We are misfits in Mali, however in this spot we are in harmony with what we should be: Julia-who-sits-in-nature on a bench-that-should-be-a-tree.

The periodic breeze sends us five different bird songs, Allah in the distance, and the refreshing cool of riverside peace. I wish I could spend the rest of Mali in this moment, at this spot, on the bench.

Amerika

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:09:05 GMT

I feel that it is time for me to make a little update here, although I have not prepared anything profound or moving. Turns out that life isn't always profound or moving, so there you go.

I'm writing this from the comfort of my sister's bedroom in Mapleton, Utah, with my good old friend from the college days, "PowerBook G4" and the convience of wireless internet. In short I'm happy not to be sweating while paying for the priveledge of internet time.

I'm home in Utah for a little vacation. Mali got hot and I had some vacation days to use up. Plus I needed this. I have been equally enjoying the luxeries America has to offer, warm showers, cool weather, sandwiches, drinking fountains, and coffee, while being disgusted by how fat the cows and horses are, and how much mountain side the city of Springville is allowing to be cut down in order to build HUGE houses. I'm realizing things are going to contiune to change here and that I'm just going to have to let go of the idea that "home" will stay as pristine as my childhood memory of home is.

As my father likes to say, "Life is hard and then you die." (I'm not sure why I've just included that...)

As far as Mali goes, I'm in the home stretch. I was playing with the idea of extending for a few months to a year, but that is slowly slipping from my mind. I realize that even if I put off making life desicions for another year, they will still be waiting for me. Procrastination and/or guilt are not good enough reasons to stay. Besides, something is telling me it is time to move on.

All the wonderful things I said about my new life in Markala were maybe a little premature. Not that things are bad, but as they say, "not all that glitters is gold." I say this becuase my new people are not used to treating me the way I want to be treated. I'll call it forceful pampering. And I won't say there wasn't a lot of tension between myself and my host family over issues such as the quantity and quality of my meals (they were upset that I wasn't eating enough, apparently enough is a family size bowl of rice or macaroni or any speciality dinner swimming in oil just for me), my lengthy bike rides (a three hour bike ride is just excessive), and me handwashing my own clothes. But things are slowly straightening out. They think it strange that I want them to treat me "disrespectfully" but really I'm trying to hold onto to a little bit of independence.

As far as work goes, I'm discovering the tension between the NGO and the testing center. It is interesting to learn the dynamics of each organization and see how, when push comes to shove, and it does often, who can behave professionally and who can afford to sulk like an eight year old. Nevertheless, I'm pleased to be part of something that is actually working and that is important, like AIDS prevention. I've had many casual conversations on this topic and it amazes me the range of what people understand compared with some of the myths others believe: you get AIDS from eating rice, using condoms, or AIDS is a lie the white people created to control Africans. But still I'm happy to be working with educated professionals on important issues.

And finally, I just have to say, to all my wonderful friends, that I'm so proud of you. It is amazing all things you are doing. You may not think so, but that is because you are too zoomed in. When I come back, and I haven't heard about all your going ons, and we catch up, I am floored by all the impressive things you are working on, and I'll admit a little jealous too. So here's to all my atheletes, musicians, PHD students, movers and shakers. You guys are making a profound difference in the world just through doing what you love to do. I honestly believe that this is the most important thing. Effective change in the world comes from self-improvement. As cliche as it is, this is what I've learned in Mali. So you all, don't underestimate yourselves or downplay what you are doing, because I'm amazed by you.

New Contact Info

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:46:49 GMT

This is my new contact information:

Julia Day
Corps de la Paix
BP 33 Markala
Segou, Mali
West Africa

223-547-5491

Grandpa

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:27:37 GMT

My dad always said that my Grandfather was like a cat with nine lives. His teasing nature didn’t stop with playful winks to his grandkids or joking with old friends. Somebody ought to have told him that one doesn’t flirt with death. But time and time again he proved that he didn’t need that advice; he always seemed to land on his feet, like a cat with lives to spare.

I never felt too guilty trotting around the world to various destinations for various reasons. Even when I received word that my grandfather was in the hospital recovering from this or that major surgery my thought was “the old salt will be driving to Nebraska with an oxygen tank in the back of the car in just a matter of days.”

Things were a little different before I left for the Peace Corps. I went to Denver to visit the extended family, but mostly my grandfather. Together we strolled down memory lane, rummaging through stacks of completely disorganized snapshots: naval reunions, summer vacation to the Grand Canyon, my uncle in his band uniform, my aunt in her prom dress, my dad in tight pastel plaid pants, cousins’ birthdays, dance recitals, my high school graduation. It had been too long since we had sat together in the amber of the afternoon sunlit living room on the furniture smelly gently of secondhand smoke and old spice.

I was touched when he shared with that his lady friend sent him the “Dear John” letter. I could relate. I was just ending a relationship before leaving for Mali. My Grandfather opened up to me and we shared our disappointment. At this moment we stopped being grandfather and granddaughter, old and young; we were two friends sharing experiences.

It was more heartbreaking to have established this bond of friendship so late. The feeling that this was the last time we would see each other hung in the air like heavy humidity. We both acted cheerful, doing our best to believe that this was not the last time. Saying goodbye that night was uncomfortable.

About a year ago a received a letter from Grandpa comparing our overseas experiences. Although he had been in the Navy during WWII, he told me he could relate to the loneliness of being abroad, and the excitement of receiving a letter. I now cherish any bit of news I receive from Grandpa as potentially the last from him, making it the last from all of my grandparents.

The recent news of the seriousness of his condition has worried me that we were right and that was the last time we will see each other, that was his last letter to me. But I can’t help hoping he will hold on again, like he has done so many times before. I long to hear him say my name with two syllables (Jul-ya) again and tell me that I’ve grown up so much. I have a plane ticket home; seeing my grandfather is a top priority. I’m hoping this cat has a life yet to spare.

The Future of Malian Fashion

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:26:10 GMT

My superlative at the end of stage was most likely to become Ms. Frizzle. Those of you who read the Magic School Bus books as a kid know that Ms. Frizzle has the most outrageous outfits that related to the day’s topic of study. For example, if the class was learning about geology or tectonic plates, Ms. Frizzle had a dress with lava-spewing volcanoes accompanied by magma-like accessories. Her dresses ranged from iguanas to the digestive system and strangely resemble West African fabric.

This is where I come in. I think it is hilarious to be able to wear the most random prints and planned on doing so without shame from the beginning of my Malian experience. It all started on our first day of home stay, also know as the hardest, most emotionally trying day of my life. In the midst of vast misunderstanding and confusion, my eyes fell on my host sister running from the rain toward my hut; she was wearing a pagne with cooked chicken on it. I was hooked.

The first fabric I bought had hundreds of guinea fowl. I then moved onto the less tame florescent green rooster heads. After that came planters with tulips, followed by walkmen with headphones, cooking pots and spoons, question marks, umbrellas, laptops, living rooms, and a debatable artichoke/sea anemone in a furry perfume bottle with egg-beans floating all around.

You have to agree I have a pretty good collection. I even wore my pots and spoons for the opening day of my HEARTH just to live up to the Ms. Frizzle superlative. There are so many other prints that I see people wearing that I nearly cry with happiness at their existence and jealousy because they don’t belong to me. Some of the best include:
Lamps (Kerosene, electric, and oil “Aladdin” style)
Smiling sardines in opening tins
Retro roller-skates
Combs and brushes
Shrimp
Clinking Champaign glasses
Telephones and coke bottles
Magnifying glasses
Hand with aerosol spray can
Lips with lipstick
Severed fingers
Embryos
Eyes
Hotel scene with ceiling fan
Electric Fans
Bathtub with shower
Various shoes
What I like to call “Love Bombs”
Lightbulbs
Shopping Carts
Hands with wedding rings
(and my all time favorite…) FISTPOUNDS!

And this doesn’t even include the various “uniform” fabrics featuring Christ bleeding from a cross, tanks, or the weird Segou snail/liver/pile of poop mascot.

Compiling this list got me thinking about some designs I’d really like to see in the near future. You’ll agree that the following are not only an accurate portrayal of Malian life, but also educational and extremely stylish. Take it from one who knows.

Ms. Frizzle’s Malian Pagne Wish List

*Pile of smoking trash
*Donkeys
*Tuaregs flapping boxes (Bonne Prix!)
*Kids pulling trash on a string
*Goats tied to various modes of transport
*Garabouts (Allah!)
*Selidaga pouring water over a butt
*Push-up lizards
*A broken down bus with the prantigis’ legs sticking out from underneath and the passengers huddling in the shade of a small bush.
*Toubobu Ke (Pete) being thrown into a pot by crazy villagers
*Illustrated instructions on proper condom use(for AIDS awareness of course)

Strike the iron while it is hot

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:46:41 GMT

I did it. I moved to Markala and I am in love zith myself for doing so. While I did love some people in Diabaly I had to move on. So please accept my apologies for the series of extremely depressing blogs and knoz that things are looking up ane up. Here is why:
1. My job: I found myself a NGO called CADIBA(you frenchies can look it up at cadiba.org). My role is helping the animator for their AIDS branch go out and give animations, aka talks, in small villages around Markala. Becasue this is a developing program I have a lot of say in its make up. Also the english teacher that speaks english more than "small small" is using texts from the National Geographic about AIDS as reading examples in class. He wants us to do something with the, in the schools. The options qre so exciting and the best part is that my co-workers see me as a resource and WANT me to help them.

2. My Family: I'll start by saying that I generally try to avoid men in uniform as I believe they qre power tripping. However, my new host dad, a major in the Malian army, is so nice and not just so me. He LAUGHS and PLAYS withhis children. My mom is a teadher of history at the high scool and has already invited me(within 24 hours of being there) to her younger brother's wedding in Bamako.

I thought it would be difficutl to make this change ane make new contacts all over again; but it has been so easy and natural, moreso than me opening my compound door to leave every morning in Diabaly. Sometimes I never even made it that far.

The connections have been made and now it is a mater of breaking them into Peace Corps toubobs. They think I'm crazy for doing things like a country bumpkins.

But know this: things are looking up and up and I am happy.

Restless Leg Syndrome

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:59:22 GMT

I've been feeling bad about myself and everthing lately: the poor quality of my Bambara, the country-bumbkinness of my clothes (i'm currently in Bamako), the lack of actual Malian friendships, my lack of work, my lack of control over the moving situation, the lack of control of my awkard hair length, the impending doom of post-Peace Corps life, and the current need for fulfillment in any one of these areas.
Consequently I've diagnosed myself with Restless Leg Syndrome. Forget giardia, ameobic dysentary, fungal infections, and Malaria. My current problem is restless leg, moving into restless body/mental state syndrome.

I used to find comfort in hanging out with other volunteers. It used to be that we were all in the same boat, but at some point everyone started paddeling and left me floating obliviouly behind. And now the final destination is nearing and I'm wondering where the oars are, which direction I'm going, where I've come from, and what happened in all this time. Meanwhile, I'm seeing pictures of old aquantinces who have been married for four years with two children. What happened? How can they do that?

Anyway, everything is up in the air for me with moving. I have a less than enthusicastic supervisor working with me and I feel like the communication thing is not going as clearly as I wish, because I don't know what my role in this transition needs to be. I turn one way and I'm burning bridges, turn the other and slam into a wall. I can't help but to wonder if there is too little time to be going through this process, but I know there is too much time to not. Allah help me.

From The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:35:56 GMT

Lost Letters:

Recently I took a taxi from one end of Paris to the other and got a garrulous driver. He couldn’t sleep at night. He had a bad case of insomnia. It all began during the war. He was a sailor. His ship sank. He swan three days and three nights. Finally he was saved. For several months he had wavered between life and death, and though he eventually recovered, he lost the ability to sleep.
“I live a third more life than you,” he said, smiling. “And what do you do with the extra third?” I asked.
“I write,” he answered.
I asked him what he wrote.
His life story. The story of a man who swam three days at sea, held his own against death, lost the ability to sleep, but preserved the strength the live.
“Is it for your children? A family chronicle?”
“My kids don’t give a damn.” He laughed bitterly. “No, I’m making a book out of it. I think it could co a lot of people a lot of good.”
My talk with the taxi driver gave me a sudden insight into the nature of a writer’s concerns. The reason we write books is that our kids don’t give a damn. We turn to an anonymous world because our wife stops up her ears when we talk to her.
You may ask whether the taxi driver was merely a graphomaniac. Let us define our terms. A woman who writes her lover four letters a day is not a graphomaniac, she is simply a woman in love. But my friend who Xeroxes his love letters so he can publish them someday—my friend is a graphomaniac. Graphomania is not a desire to write letters, diaries, or family chronicles (to write for oneself or one’s immediate family); it is a desire to write books (to have a public of unknown readers). In this sense the taxi driver and Goethe share the same passion. What distinguishes Goethe from the taxi driver is the result of the passion, not the passion itself.
Graphomania (an obsession with writing books) takes on the proportions of a mass epidemic whenever a society develops to the point where it can provide three basic conditions:

1. a high enough degree of general well-being to enable people to devote their energies to useless activities;
2. an advances state of social atomization and the resultant general feeling of the isolation of the individual;
3. a rational absence of significant social change in the internal development of the nation. (in this connection I find it symptomatic that in France, a country where nothing really happens, the percentage of writers is twenty-one times higher than in Israel. […] It is this absence of content, this void, that powers the motor driving [us] to write.)

But the effect transmits a kind of flashback to the cause. If general isolation causes graphomania, mass graphomania itself reinforces and aggravates the feeling of general isolation. The invention of printing originally promoted mutual understanding. In the era of graphomania the writing of books has the opposite effect: everyone surrounds himself with his own writings as with a wall of mirrors cutting off all voices from without.

A person who writes books is either all (a single universe for himself and everyone else) or nothing. And since all will never be given to anyone, every one of us who writes books is nothing. Ignored, jealous, deeply wounded, we wish the death of our fellow man.

The proliferation of mass graphomania among politicians, cab drivers, women on the delivery table, mistresses, murderers, criminals, prostitutes, police chiefs, doctors, and patients prove to me that every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself and that all mankind has every right to rush out into the streets with a cry of “We are all writers!”
The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it’s too late.
Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.

The Angels:

This is what my father told me when I was five: a key signature is a king’s court in miniature. It is ruled by a king (the first step) and his two right-hand men (steps five and four). They have four other dignitaries at their command, each of which has his own special relation to the king and his right-hand men. The court houses five additional tones as well, which are known as chromatic. They have important parts to play in other keys, but here they are simply guests.
Since each of the twelve notes has its own job, title, and function, any piece we hear is more than mere sound: it unfolds a certain action before us. Sometimes the events are terribly involved (as in Mahler or—even more—Bartok of Stravinsky): princes from other courts intervene, and before long there is no telling which court a tone belongs to an no assurance it isn’t working undercover as a double or triple agent. But even then the most naïve of listeners can figure our more or less what is going on. The most complex music is still a language.
That is what my father told me. What follows is all my own. One day a great man determined that after a thousand years the language of music had worn itself out and could do no more than rehash the same message. Abolishing the hierarchy of tones by revolutionary decree, he made them all equal and subjected them a strict discipline: none was allowed to occur more often than any other in a piece, and therefore none could lay claim to its former feudal privileges. All courts were permanently abolished, and in there place arose a single empire, founded on equality and called the twelve-tone system.
Perhaps the sonorities were more interesting than they had been, but audiences accustomed to following the courtly intrigues of the keys for a millennium failed to make anything of them. In any case, the empire of the twelve-tone system soon disappeared. After Schoenberg came Varese, and he abolished notes (the tones of the human voice and musical instruments) along with keys, replacing them with an extremely subtle play of sounds, which, though fascinating, marks the beginning of the history of something, other music, something based on principles and another language.

In the days when Arnold Schoenberg founded his twelve-tone empire, music was richer than ever before and intoxicated with its freedom. No one ever dreamed the end was so near. No fatigue. No twilight. Schoenberg was audacious as only youth can be. He was legitimately proud of having chosen the only road that led “onward.” The history of music came to an end in a burst of daring and desire.

If it is true that the history of music has come to an end, what is left of music? Silence? Hot in the least. There is more and more of it, many times more than in its most glorious days. It pours out of outdoor speakers, our of miserable sound systems in apartments and restaurants, out if the transistor radios people carry around the streets.
Schoenberg is dead, Ellington is dead, but the guitar is eternal. Stereotyped harmonies, hackneyed melodies, and a beat that gets stronger as is gets duller—that is what’s left of music, the eternity of music. Everyone can come together on the basis of those simple combinations of notes. They are life itself proclaiming its jubilant “Here I am!” No sense of communion is more resonant, more unanimous, that the simple sense of communion with life. It can bring Arab and Jew together, Czech and Russian. Bodies pulsing to a common beat, drunk with the consciousness that they exist. No work of Beethoven’s has ever elicited greater collective passion than the constant repetitive throb of the guitar.
On day, about a year before my father’s death, the two of us were taking a walk around the block, and that music seemed to be following us everywhere. The sadder people are the louder the speakers blare. They are trying to make an occupied country forget the bitterness of history and devote all its energy to the joys of everyday life. Father stopped and looked up at the device the noise was coming from, and I could tell he had something very important to tell me. Concentrating as hard as he could on putting what was on his mind into words, he finally came our with: “The idiocy of music.”
What did he mean? Could he possibly have meant to insult music, the love of his life? No, what I think he wanted to tell me was that there is a certain primordial state of music, a state prior to its history, the state before the issue was ever raised, the state before the play of motif and theme was ever conceived or even contemplated. This elementary state of music (music minus thought) reflects the inherent idiocy of human life. It took a monumental effort of heart and mind for music to rise up over this inherent idiocy, and it was this glorious vault arching over centuries of European history that died our a the peak of its flight like a rocket in a fireworks display.
The history of music is mortal, but the idiocy of the guitar is eternal. Music in our time has returned to its primordial state, the state after the last issue has been raised and the last theme contemplated—a state that follows history.

Really?

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:00:26 GMT

Is it okay to hide out from reality? Spend half your time inside a book and the other half making fun of children or debating whether it will be rice or to for dinner and how many dried fish you can get away with eating? Where the most pressing problem in your life is where you can find the strongest cell phone signal in town or what will happen on tonight's episode of the French-dubbed Latin soap opera.

I, as I said before, am in the process of a site change: moving to a smaller more out of the way village that can actually be called a village. I went out to see it today and left with a slightly unnerved feeling. I can't tell if that is a result of the village itself, the vagueness of the preparations, car sickness, or a feeling that I am done with Mali and need to move on. I am scared that I will move to a new place and still accomplish nothing and feel the same way about myself as I do now. Am I just getting cold feet?

Anyway, as far as reality goes, I have no doubt that I've been hiding from it. That is why I joined the Peace Corps in the first place. I know you think I am living more "real-ly" in Africa, but it is not my reality. Here I don't think about getting the millet ground for dinner, my children's malaria, failing rice crops, taxes, gas, gradschool, jobs, responsibility, resumes, the time, anything. I do what I want whenever I feel like it. Is this what I wanted from the Peace Corps?

I had a point when I began this writing, but the recent knowledge of some truely bad news has left me, well, floored. I'm trying to decide where my loyalties actually lie and if it worth it to give up my romantasized visions of "making a difference in an Afican's life" to be there for an American.

Ala ka n deme.

Happy New Year

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:13:29 GMT

I started 2007 by falling into open sewage outside a Malian bar (which could be better described as a brothel) with my sister. This was not a drunken accident, as the two of us had only split one beer, but an obviousomen of the fantastic year full of events to look forward to, new village, travels in West Africa, and return to America. Whatever 2007 and post-Peace Corps bring me, It is sure to be noteworthy, as the open sewage experience dictates.

Here and now it is January 16th and I am in Bamako requesting a change of site. Diabaly and I didn't seem to work out well. Not that Diabaly treated me badly, just indifferently and I found myself drifting deeper into lethargy. I was like a malnournished child, completely unstimulated by anythin. Mental Malnutrition.

My potental new site looks like a better match. It is 40 km (a bikable distance)from Segou, population 1,500, newly opened materity with a young matron that wants help and guidance. I regret trying to make the Diabaly shoe fir for so long. Needless to say, I have high hopes for the next 10 months. I hope to fulfill my need for fulfillment in Zambougou-Fouta.

For thoseof you who mail things to me, mail them to:

Julia Day
Corps de la Paix
BP 117
Segou, Mali
West Africa

More Kurt Vonnegut

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:45:51 GMT

from Hocus Pocus...
"Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe."

"...she had been appalled by how ignorant so many American tourist and soldiers were of geography and history, and the languages and customs of other countries. She asked me, 'What makes so many Americans proud of their ignorance? They act as thought their ignorance somehow made them charming.' I had been asked the same general question by Alton Darwin...'How come in all these movies the Germans and the Japanese are always the smart ones, and the Americans are the dumb ones, and the still the American win the war?'"

Think about that in the context of what we Americans are proudly up to in the world today...

Some things to mention

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:18:48 GMT

1. Bad music happens to good people. I don't know why malians listen to the crying/laughing/farting baby over tacky drum machine, but it is widely popular.

2. Bad things happen to good people no matter what part of the world you are in. These last few months haven't really been the best.

3. In the words of Baba Traore, a wise old man:
"A Fifa dooni. peut-ti c'est chaud un peu."
or
"Fan it a little, Maybe it is a litle hot."
This is good life guidance.

4.It is okay to abandon a project when the 'excrement hits the air-conditioning,' as Kurt Vonnegut says in "Hocus Pocus, like Vietnam, or Iraq, or my Hearth project.

5.There is a guy named Fred and he's got a pair of slacks, ooo Fred's got slacks.

6.Anna and Rob are not married! Why are they hosting Thanksgiving.

7.70 degrees is frigid when you have become accustomed to 100 at night.

8.Bean and slave jokes will never get old for Malians.

9.Here is another hilarious joke: WHITE PEOPLE

10. Just got back from a mandatory dentist appointment where I was sandblasted with toothpaste

How I lost my virginity in Mali (It is a metophore)

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:51:24 GMT

'Hearth'-the stone or brick of fireplace, or the fireside, or family life, home (as says webster).

'Hearth' in Mali- a grass roots health project designed to teach women and hopefully change their behavior toward a o host of health topics resulting in the improvement of child and maternal health. Everyday for two weeks the women come to cook improved porridge, get their babies weighed, and listen to a health talk by your friendly PCV, me, in hopes the visible change in their children's weight will convince them that the chqnged habits are worth it.

'Virginity'-state of being chaste, modest, untouched, unused, pure

'Virginity' in Mali- an unexperienced state that once lost, cannot be retrieved

This week was the commencment of my hearth project in the neighboring village of Kogoni, 3km away from Diabaly. This marks the beginning of any health work I have actually done in the year I have been in Mali. Things are going differently than I expected, to say the least, causing me to think, with my overheated brain on the bike ride home, in drastic comparisons. I was getting down on myself because this project wasn't going well and the women were only showing up to get their porridge then leaving. I felt bad because I was only doing my first hearth and I have peers on their fifth and sixth successful hearths.Then I thought if this experience is so painful and such a hassle, why would they dedicate all their time to doing hearths.

This thought then led to the following conclusion: your first hearth must be like you first time having sex. It is messy, painful, awkward, not going as planned at all, yet there is the lingering idea that something about the activity is fulfilling and worthwhile. There is the hope that in future situations knowledge of what the hell to do will increase as the clumsiness, discomfort, and chaos decrease. There is the anticipation of future experiences where you, with your new found confidence can take control and get fulfillment and satisfaction in the results,the ability to write home saying "I saved 10 babies this month," and the knowledge that 10 women are now at least aware that they have cantraceptive options.

I guess that makes the first time worth it, that potential future satisfaction.

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 10:03:53 GMT

It is amazing how quickly things can change and how much support you can find in a time of greif. Last Sunday Peace Corps Mali lost two volunteers in a boating accident. It has been a hard reality for everyone to deal with, especially the loss of two of the most creative and lively people I have known. However the rest of the PC community has come together to support eachother and that has been beautiful. I know this is my family right now.

The irony of the title of my previous entry is almost too much.

Weddings and Sundays always get me down

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 08:18:22 GMT

(The title of my next country hit)

Inspired By:

Cheik Amadou's Big Fat Overwhelming Wedding
(The title of my next entry)

I have realized a couple things. ONe being that I am a creature of habit and I don't like my Diabaly routine disrupted. The second is that I am easily overstimulated in a large group of people. This is especially true in Mali where I don't understand 70% of what is happening at any given moment. Last, though I am close to the members of my family that I see in Diabalym the affection doesn't automatically spread to the extended members of the family. I am still the 'white girl' for them.

I realized these things through a phenomenna called a Malian wedding. Background: My older brother, Cheik Amadou, got married last week in Niono. I decided it would be really fun to go,especially as I have been feeling more and more like part of the family. I also wanted to show everyone that I consider Cheik Amadou my brother and support him on his wedding day. So I went to Niono.

Niono is a big place compared to Diabaly, an estimated 28,000 people. Luckly I was able to find the location of the festivities just by asking around (this is one of my favorite things about Malians). None of my family actually knew I was coming for sure as I was en route from Segou. After walking up to a gathering of people and saying "Diabaly?" I was pointed inside where my host mom almost fell over with surprise at seeing me.

This woman was the highlight of my day. She took such good care of me. After we had sat waiting for a while, the weddingparty arrived with all my people, and a lot of other people I didin't know, and a lot of griots. Griots are a group of people that perform or sing sing/give blessings at events like births or marriages. If they sing a praise for you, you give them money.

Enter the chaos of the wedding party, the bride in her second-hand western style wedding dress, Cheik Amadou, all my family, photographers, a guy filming, griots, kids, noise, people, chaos, over-stimulation. The griots immediately picked out my white self in the black crowd and came over to politely ask my name. I didn'te know they are any different than anyone else there. Suddenly I am surrounded by three griots, not releasing when they start to sing "Kuuuuuuumbaaaa Baaaaahh...something in Bambara."

I broke into a minor panic. I knoew I'm supposed to give them money, but I didn't know how much and there were three of them and tis is my brother's wedding so I want to do things right etc. etc.. As all this is running through my head to the soundtrack of the griots' shrill blessings, my host mom swoops down like a hawk from the sky, takes my hand, and pulls me away to take pictures. She shakes her finger at me and tells me not to give any money to the griots. She informs me that she'll be the one giving out the money. She didn't let me out of her sight the rest of the time I was there and made clucking noises of disbelief that I was going to hand out money. Everytime we made eye contact she slowly shook her head, but I could tell that being in charge of my well-being at this wedding made her feel important. That made our bond tighter.

The rest of the time I spent at the wedding was overwhelming for me and I ended up leaving early. I just wanted to be back in Diabaly with the people that know me and my rountine, like my mom and a handful of others. I can connect bettern in that one on one environment where we can focus on communicating thouroughly with my support network nearby.

The last thing I wanted to mention is the theme of my next (and first) country song. Weddings and Sundays do get me down. The truth is that any kind of family gathering gathering here, births, Tabaski, marriages, are bittersweet. I love to watch families interact with family they havehaven't seen for a while. I love the familiarity thaey have with things and people I am familiar with, yet we don't know eachother at all. All these things make me long for that kind of interaction with my family and friends that I haven't seen for a while. I miss the teasing playfulness of it all. There will be time for that in the future. My other brother, Amadou, made me promis to send a video of my wedding to my Diabaly family. And I plan to.

Segou GAD camp 2006

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:57:00 GMT

Here is what you've all been waiting patiently for: an account of the only work I've done in 11 months.

GAD Camp: Gender and Development. The purpose is to promote gender and development. We, the Segou PCVs tried to do this by bringing two kids between the ages of 13 and 15 to Segou for a three day camp including sessions on gender roles, meeting the mayor and govenor of Segou, artisan activities, a fancy dinner, and a final extravaganza by an AIDS performance troop.

Overall things went well. The kids had a good time an d all the most important things managed to stay in the schedule even though there was significant slashing. I recieved many complements form the other volunteers for organizing a successful camp even though things turned out a bit differently than my vision. At this point I have to give a shout-out to Sylvia who was the main ring leader of this project, I was just her trusty companion.

I am finding the writing flow unnatural, so I'm going to switch to one of my favorite things, listing.

NOTEWORTHY ITEMS FROM GAD:

-M arriving with her girls at 7:00 am. They were supposed to come at noon. I was still in bed.
-The goat that ate a section of our welcome sign before anyone got there, except M and her girls.
-Career day was an unexpected success. All the kids want to work for Nyesigiso (kind of a bank)or be doctors, except for M's girls who wanted to work for a hotel. It was cute to see my girls interact with a computer for the first time.
-The age range was not 13-15 as planned, but kids showed up that were 9-19.
-Musical chairs was an unbelievable hit. When a younger girl beat an older cockier boy in the final round you would have thought the female gender had won the world cup. All the girls, including volunteers and myself, were jumping and screaming and rushed out to congratulate her.
-The AIDS trainer we hired was absolutley funded by George W. Abstinence was his only message.
-The hotle dinner was a great success until M decided to give her girls a tour of the establishment and everyone follewed, which was fin euntil they started monkeying around and we got a firm yet civil nudge to the door.
-I would like to tell you about the last , most fun filled day of the camp, but I was on the toilet getting the shit beaten out of me by 'The Amobeas.'
-ONly two mayors out of 8 towns paid the contribution we asked for. one volunteer almost caused a coup getting the equivalent of twenty dollars from his town.

Overall kids and volunteers alike had a good time. Hopefully we reached one kid or another, but there is no way to tell until she becomes an UN ambassador and thanks the volunteer that influenced her through a GAD cam^a long time ago. If nothing else it helped me validate my being here by giving me the feel good feeling of having done some bonafide work while giving some kids an experience they've never had before and for many (girls) won't have again. They will always remember their GAD camp.

From Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:32:01 GMT

"...I was taught that life was the source of literature, that literature had to be faithful fo life and ended up turning my back on real life. Life is not the same as manifestaions of life. Real life, or in otherwords the basic substance of life, should be the former and not the later. I had gone against real life becuase I was simply stringing together life's manifestations, so of course I wans't able to accuratly portray life and in the end only succedded in distorting reality."

11 month anniversary

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:58:06 GMT

You never realize how much people mean to you until they have been out of your life for a while and then find their own way back in. I was nearly moved to tears today as a result. Thank you all for being part of my life. It is cheesy, but I really mean it.