Big City Lights and a Return to Camp Mali

Pulling into Bamako after my first four months at site, even Bamako seemed cosmopolitan. Traffic lights, cars everywhere, supermarkets, bars, and even a patisserie with café au lait. I had come to Bamako a few days before my Peace Corps In-Service Training began to attend a meeting about a USAID education project and just soak up Bamako and the presence of other volunteers.

The PC training was held at Tubani So, Peace Corps’ training facility – a sort of Camp Mali, complete with cafeteria and dorm-like huts. Its both an incredible sanctuary – no one calling you “toubab!” wireless Internet, meat twice a day and the occasional cake after dinner – and an alarming change from village life. All of a sudden I was surrounded by Americans 24 hours a day, speaking English constantly, to have a jam-packed schedule when I’m used to days where I struggle to maintain some sort of routine and schedule (which often consists of things like 6:30-7AM: sweep; 7-7:30: listen to the BBC).

IST was chalk full of sessions on all kinds of technical topics – farming and selling sesame; traditional medicine; starting an association; excision. There were also visits from NGOs and development organizations like the Millennium Challenge Corporation and USAID; briefings from the embassy and a visit from the Ambassador (who conceded that she had never, ever considered doing the Peace Corps, much less riding in a bush taxi); a trip to the Malian department of health that creates the posters that are hung in health clinics (Why? Who knows?).

For the final week, our Malian counterparts were invited to Tubani So to attend training with us. All of a sudden, Tubani So was overrun by almost 200 people. And of course, it was during the coldest week of cold season, with temperatures dipping into the 60s and a serious lack of blankets. My own homologue, Aissa, arrived wearing five layers of clothing. The addition of our homologues to the mix caused utter chaos. You know those things, in terms of protocol, that you take for granted? Like standing in line, taking a piece of paper and passing it down the line, speaking in turn, and not licking the spoon that everyone uses to take sugar (or even using utensils to begin with). To most Malians, these rules that are so implicit to our every move are utterly foreign. And so, dinner was a mad rush to edge your body closest to the serving bowl, training sessions were over laden with disorder, and Tubani So was filled with Malians shocked and confused by the odd behavior and overwhelming number of 70 Americans all in one place. So many computers! So much English! Pizza? Disgusting! Pancakes? Blech!

Aissa was shocked to learn that I had more than one girlfriend and we spent more than one evening doubled over in laughter at the antics of Toubabs. But when I told her that the Peace Corps director is coming to visit our village next week, she about had a panic attack. There was such fear in her eyes at the idea of the DIRECTOR of the Peace Corps, not just a toubab, not just an American, not just the director, but also a WHITE MAN. Despite trying to calm her and having one of my Malian colleagues impress upon her that Mike Simsek was only coming to meet people, to see my village, to see the work the previous volunteer had done, to see what I might do, Aissa squeezed shut her eyes and shivered. The next morning, she called our village immediately – everyone must prepare: The Patron Ba, the Director of Peace Corps Mali is coming and everything must be clean, clean, clean! Because Aissa has it in her head that if Mike spots any dirt, anything out of place, if there’s not a good chair for him, he will tell everyone, tell it to the moon, that our village is dirty, unwelcoming, who knows what he would say. Cause those toubabs sure are crazy.