Thanksgiving in Mali

Me, Anna, and Katie at the falls.
The upper falls at Woroni.

The road to my village.
My language tutor, Lassina.
My djatigi's compound.
My djatigi (host father), Zange.
His first wife, Bintu.

I apologize for the long delay between entries. At the beginning of November I had to take a short trip to Bamako, after which I didn’t want to leave my village again until Thanksgiving because I knew I would be gone then for a while. Not too much to report from village – vaccinations and baby weighings, etc. An NGO called Keneya Ciwara had done some “monitoring” of the CSCOM, which was basically an audit of the records, and we had a meeting about the results. They found (shock shock) that the CSCOM is underutilized – something that we definitely already knew. One of the main problems is that the pharmacy is empty right now, but they are supposedly restocking it within the next couple of weeks. Once we have medication again, the ASACO president (the ASACO is a community organization that manages the finances of the CSCOM) has asked me to go to each village in the commune with him to announce that the pharmacy has been refilled.

This all feels pretty far away right now, because last Tuesday morning I came into Sikasso to kick off the Thanksgiving festivities. It has become an annual thing in Peace Corps Mali that the biggest Thanksgiving party is in Sikasso, because we have the best selection of fruits and vegetables to cook with. This year over 50 volunteers came. The Sikasso volunteers from last year’s training group took the lead in organizing everything (fortunately), and did an amazing job. When people arrived, they had to “register,” which meant paying a flat rate that covered both Thanksgiving dinner and Mexican night the following night. Then they signed up for a cooking team (this was actually optional, but I think most people helped cook).

It was amazing how well everything worked out. This year the organizers decided to pay Malians to do some of the work for us – all the potatoes for the mashed potatoes were peeled and boiled by a Malian woman and then brought back for the mashing. We also got green beans and squash prepared by Malians, and four of the six turkeys (two of the turkeys were deep-fried by PCVs). The squash that is available here is very similar to pumpkin, and made for delicious pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread.

Friday evening was Mexican night, and on the weekend we organized a trip to Woroni Falls, some waterfalls about 65 km south of Sikasso. Another PCV, Jessie, and I were responsible for organizing the waterfall trip, so we basically just showed up at Mexican night and enjoyed the food. Because all of the dishes available to PCVs in Sikasso were being used for Mexican night, we had to prepare some of the food that we were bringing to the falls that night, after people had finished eating.

About 20 people ended up going to the falls. We had organized “sept-place” (seven-seat) taxis to take us there and spend the night, bringing us back on Sunday. The funny thing about the sept-place taxis is that they base their prices on the assumption that there are nine passengers, not seven. And we had to fit 10 people in one of the cars, plus each car takes two drivers in case they need help pushing if the car breaks down. Despite being cramped, we made it somehow.

The falls were absolutely beautiful. It felt like we were in another country because everything was so lush and green and tropical looking. On the lowest level of the falls there is a flat, shady, sandy area, perfect for camping (and I didn’t get a picture of this part, unfortunately). Further up is another set of falls, and above that is a third one, but I didn’t make it up there this trip (there’s not really a path). In the evening we made a fire, and one guy had brought marshmallows that someone had sent him from the U.S., so we even got to make roasted marshmallows! In the morning one of the cars left very early, but those of us in the second car hiked around a little more before returning to Sikasso.

Today I have errands to do (including posting this), then I’m planning to return to my village this afternoon. I’m admittedly feeling a little bummed about the holiday and all the fun stuff we planned being over, but I know I’ll feel better once I’m back in my village. Also, I have a stack of People magazines that my mom sent me to console me.