Brian is Here! And I'm Workin' Too!

17 Toubabo in Kamona for our 1st Annual Cotten Picken' Fete!

The villagers LOVED it. It was like the circus was in town!

Brian picking some cotton in my friends field.

He and I both picked 2 kilos each!

Not bad, but for 2 of us, 1 Malian picked the same amount! haha

Take Your FlipFlops Off!

Sign for our newly fixed pump at the school.

Our finished map of the world at the school.

I make Brian do good deeds on his vacation!

These girls have become my best friends out here, they are Awesome!

Hannah is missing from the photo.

Pictured: Terese, Jenn, Brian, Shelby, Me

Our finished shea storage facility.

The women of Kamona have wanted this for 3 years!

Brian finally made it out to Mali, and he's doing so well here! I put him through the toughest parts first, and now it's just vacation from now on...kind of. We spent 5 days in my village and during that time Brian was able to help us paint a world map at the school, and also pick cotton. Brian's trip coincided with my big Cotten Picken' party that I had scheduled for the volunteers. There were about 17 of us total in my village,and they couldn't have been more excited. I must say, I think Brian has been given the royal treatment since he arrived. The first night here in Segou, they had a lamb killed and we had a nice big family dinner, drinking homemade Lebanese Arak (it tastes like Sambuka). Then, once we arrived in Kamona, Brian was given 3 chickens as welcoming gifts. We also had a pig killed for the cotton party. The other volunteers were excited for this because pork is so rare to eat here, as Mali is a Muslim country.

Now, with all of this going on, I have SOOOO much work to do! We just finished our storage building, but I still need to do the closing paperwork for that, there is another pump in the village that needs to be repaired and the villagers already raised 1/3 of the money so now it's up to me to get the 2/3rds. My women would like pumps for their garden work, and gardening season is starting soon so that needs to be done. I am taking on another project by a volunteer that got medical separated from Mali, but it's really important that this project get done as it involves cotton spinning work. The time crunch is because I will be going home early Dec. for 1 month vacation, and this is just the season for work. I'll get it done. Inshallah!

Brian and I are off to Dogon Country this week (UNESCO World Heritage Site). I have my friend Chrissy thats on her way to meet up with us in Dogon, she will be spending Nov. here in Mali. So that adds to my already full schedule. It's ok, it's GREAT to have visitors. Time is flying by, and I know these next few months are going to FLY by!

Today is river day, so Brian will get to experience A Day on the Niger. Sundays are nice days here in Segou. Off to the pool! It's in the 90's here. Temps have cooled off! hahah, Brian was telling me about the cold in the US, and I am scared to go home now. It's so great for me to have my brother here. My life here is so different from home, and as he said "there's no way you can explain this to people Mon, you're life out here without really getting the meaning across" and so now, Brian is here. Eating with his hands, squatting over a hole to poo, greeting people in Bambara, meeting my friends, and experiencing life in Africa! It's great.

School Pump Fixed, 800+students have clean water!

This is the schools Vergnet Pump, you step down on it to push the water out

This is one classroom for the 3rd grade. Approx. 80 students.....

This is grade 4-6 school rooms.

This is the first day of school so they are lined up for role call.

Ok, so because all of you wonderful people that read my blog and care about the people of Mali, I was able to fix our village school pump. Last July I sent out an email asking people to donate to my women's cotton spinning project. I only needed $500, and I ended up raising around $800! With this extra money I knew I needed to spend it on a project but wasn't quite sure which project to use this money for. So, because of another project that I am working on I had to go look at all of our town's pumps. We have 4 in all. 2/4 were broken. They headmaster of the school said their pump broke the year before and the children have about a 1 mile walk to the nearest clean water pump. I felt bad and said that we needed to work together to fix this.

Well, as most things go on in Mali, it took until 2 weeks ago to get this project rolling, as I was re-motivated to get their pump fixed because classes began Oct 1. Myself and the village water pump repairman had to travel to the closest city with was 2 hrs away to go buy the parts. It was $226 total to fix the pump! Not too bad by our standards, but for them a lot of money. Pump fixed! Clean drinking water for 800+students!

Now, a big argument in development work is gifting things vs. making people work a little bit for what they are getting. I am a firm believer in making the people work a bit, as I see first hand the effects of free handouts by the West. It creates a very unhealthy dependance. However I feel the students should not be punished for the adults inaction.

When I went to the school to check out the newly working pump, the headmaster told me there was a meeting with the chief of village the following friday as he wanted to formally thank me for fixing the pump and go over some other important business with myself and the water committee of the village (we have a water committee? and my neighbor is the president???? I though to myself). Anyway, my main point to bring home was that Yes, it made me very happy to be able to fix the pump, but I'm leaving next year and what will you do then when the pumps break again. So, that got them to think about starting to have everyone pay monthly to use the pumps, they understand the concept of monthly upkeeping, but always with the excuse of "we have no money." Now, this meeting was 20 men or so, and another part of my presentation was to map out our plan for fixing their other pump. I am to contribute 66%, the village 34% of cost per USAID rules for allocating funds. I told them if my women could raise $200 dollars to contribute towards building their Shea storage/workspace, then the men sure can raise $150 to fix their pump.

I believe I'm rambling now, but hope you get the point. I'm really proud and happy for this project and I couldn't have done it without the help of all my donors in the US! I hope to soon be able to fix their other pump. Clean drinking water is a major concern here, as well water is much more dirty, contains many diseases, and is a major cause for infant mortality here.