All about Toumou

Happy New Year from Mali to everyone! All is well here…

Since last we met, I have seen where I’ll be spending my next two years!  A few weeks ago all of us new Peace Corps Trainees took a week-long visit to see our new homes all over the enormous country of Mali.  Some people had very, very long trips, including several hours on buses with animals on top (and inside for that matter), quality time in sotramas (a bicycle/ motorcycle led caravan that holds 4 people comfortably but 10 normally), and for some people even a trip on a donkey led cart.  There were stories of vomit, animal excrement, and even some plowing right through whole herds of animals.  I faired well though and had only to contend with an hour and a half bus-ride, followed by an hour and a half bike ride (15 km) to my new little town of Toumou.

I traveled with Youssouf Kone, who will be my work partner (called my homologue in Peace Corps lingo) while I stay in Toumou.  Youssouf is a tiny, tiny tailor (he is the same size as me!) and boutique owner (butigi tigi in Bambara) in Toumou, with a new second wife and 8 children.  He was amazingly helpful and somehow managed to understand my crazy Bamabara incredibly well throughout my visit.  I looked at him incredulously as we stepped off the bus in Kwale, however, and as he began to load our bicycles with all my stuff—two back packs, a box of water, and bananas, eggs, and bread in large quantities that Youssouf bought to bring back to his family. 

Have you every tried to ride a bicycle in a skirt? In the sand? With luggage and a stranger?   It was a little too bizarre to contend with rationally so I just looked at all the trees along the way and tried not to fall off my bike or flash anyone passing by.  The insanity only continued as I arrived in Toumou, 100% disoriented, as zillions of Malians grabbed all my things and led me somewhere.  Drums, at least 40 people, crazy stringed instruments, and all kinds of people singing my Malian name, picking up my hands to dance, and generally making a scene, awaited me in what I found out later was my new concession (house).  The similarity between what was happening in Toumou and what had happened when I had come to my homestay village just two months ago for the first time was striking, only this time there were no Americans to glance at with a look of ‘Oh this is so crazy, look how much fun we are having being crazy white people prancing around to drums in this village and not knowing what anyone is saying! Ha ha giggle giggle!’ Nope.  Just me.  Wishing someone could see this craziness and laugh at me!  So I just laughed at me instead—oh and all the Malians laughed at me too.  Like I know how to dance to that crap.  It was awesome.

Everyone eventually left, and Youssouf and I ate lunch together—a delicious meal of To! In case you don’t know about to, it is a common West African dish which consists of a starchy paste that you ball up in your hand (no forks or spoons here!) and dip in an okra sauce that, not surprisingly if you have tried okra, has a texture and consistency impressively similar to snot.  That description aside, it’s kinda growing on me. After lunch I took a bucket bath in my brand spanking new nyegen (outdoor bathroom) and took a little time to scope out my house.  It consists of three mud one room huts, surround by a shoulder height wall, with a nice corn stalk covered hanger in the center. 

And then the tour began!  Youssouf, being the excellent homologue that he is and despite my selfish desire to duck away in my room and process my surroundings, brought me to ALL the important places in town, beginning with the dugutiki’s house.  The dugutiki is head of the village, typically a really, really old man.  I mean really old.  Youssouf so kindly explained to the dugutiki in Bambara of a quality that I can only one day hope to achieve, what I would be doing in Toumou, where I would live, what organization I was working with, and that the dugutiki and his family were also responsible for ensuring my safety and well-being.  At least I think that’s what he said.  It sounded like nice things anyway. 

And then we did that same conversation, at least 8 more times, all over town, with farmers, school headmasters, organization leaders, etc.  I was so checked out by the end people had to say my name 3 times before I even knew they were talking to me.  The only thing I really remember and was the most excited about was, not surprisingly, the trees and rocks.  But really!  As I walked out of the dugutiki’s house and out towards the market, my eyes found a tree trunk the size of a house, stretching out huge, vine-like roots with branches that reached up well beyond the comfortable point for my neck’s range of motion.  I was flabbergasted.  It has got to be the biggest tree I’ve ever seen.  It looks like the tree on Avatar. Oh man.  And also on trees, Toumou has an IMPRESSIVE number of mango trees that seem to wall in the town on all sides with all shades of waxy, shiny green leaves and what appears to be red fuzz from a distance, the beginnings of the fruits that await my belly in the next few months.  Yummm.

Toumou overall looks (I may be biased because its mine) like a perfectly African tour-guide book village. Most of the houses have thatched roofs that look like some one grabbed a bundle of good-looking, straight hay, tied a string around the top, and shoved it onto a mud cup.  Some of these little huts appear to be filled with copious amounts of marshmallows, much to my momentary excitement upon seeing them bulging out over the rims of their containers.  Alas, magic puff it is not, but rather cotton, which is far less tasty and a lot more prickly.

Everybody seems to be a farmer of some kind in Toumou, much like most Malians.  After my first three months at site (during which time I will be gardening, starting a chicken coup, and generally nesting in my new abode!), it seems that I’ll be trying to help Toumoucaw (Toumou people) with the following things:

--Rice production, particularly growing rice and raising fish…at the same time… in the same place…amazing!

--Nutritional information (namely, getting people to eat this plant called Moringa which is a magic food for malnutrition)

--Hand-washing (so simple,

--Working with a women’s organization on shea nut production (that stuff that's in all your lotion! This is where it comes from!)

--Tree nurseries (the have baobobs too! Yay! Big as a church)

--Overall increased food production (gardening and farming!)

--Fruit preservation and drying (have you had dried mango?  It’s delicious)

--Bees! (I’m pretty terrified of bees, but maybe the fact that I don’t want to be but counts for something)

So, that’s the run down for now!  I will be swearing in as an Official Peace Corps Volunteer hum hum on January 6^th, my birthday!  Sounds like it will be a lot of fun with a fancy ceremony and a night on the town afterwards.  I got some sweet new clothes made just for the occasion.  I’ll head to Toumou the second week in January.  Can’t wait to get started!

Happy New Year again!