Furusuri, a Malian wedding, mom's visit, 8 Mars

I experienced my first Malian wedding a few months ago. My older host sister, Salimata was married to a man from the Ivory Coast. It was an interesting process. Two days before the wedding I spent an afternoon with her lying around, drinking tea, having jabi (like henna) put on our hands and feet. I couldn't believe how long I had to sit there, and then mine still wasn't as dark as it should be.
Her jabi was very intricate and beautiful. I think it was a specific design because she was getting married. The next day (before the day of the wedding) she had to spend the whole day inside her mother's house. All the women in our extended family came and as they informed me we had to give her fabric and a piece of dishware. Then she sat inside while the rest of us talked, ate and danced outside. We could go inside and sit with her though.
In the afternoon they brought her outside and covered her face. An older woman started braiding her hair while women around her sang songs. After her hair was done being braided, she went into the negen (bathroom) with one of her grandmothers and she washed her. I didn't see that part. After that she came out and her mothers and other respected older women in the family washed her arms and legs, and last her feet. (Her face was still covered the whole time.) When her feet were clean they put new sandals on her and carried her, like she was a baby on the back of a younger woman and carried her back into the house, where she then put on white clothes and was allowed to have her face uncovered.
The next day, which was the actual day of the wedding, seemed to be not as big of a deal as the day before. She stayed inside all day, until at some point she went to the mayor's office to make it official. I didn't see her fiancee at all during this time. Once it was official she went to his family's house and had to stay inside for a week there except for going to the bathroom. Apparently all her mothers and aunts went and spent the first night with her there. They asked me to spend the night but I assumed they were joking. Almost every night I went with my host sisters and drank tea and talked with Sali inside her husbands family's house.
She seemed a little bit scared. I don't know if it was about being married again (she was divorced and has a child from a previous marriage). She had never been to the Cote d'Ivoire before and she knew she wouldn't see her family again for years. She also had to leave her five year old son with our family, because in Mali children are considered to belong to the man and his family. Although he lives with our family now, her ex-husbands family lives nearby and in a few years he will most likely go to live with them. It was hard for me to understand having to leave your child, but I know she had no other option.
I am hoping that if I make it to the Cote D'Ivoire I can go and visit her.
My mom came for ten days or so and we had a very nice visit. We didn't really do any traveling, we just stayed in Bamako and went out to my site for a couple days. But it was really nice to see her and I am very glad she got to see what my life is like here. She was a bit shocked. When she saw my hut she started to cry. However, she was moved by the kindness of everyone in my town and it was exciting for her to see me speaking Bambara and interacting with my friends.
The hot season was really in full swing (it is now over a hundred every day). I felt like I really needed to start getting more work done, and beginning projects. I talked with Jege and some people at the CSCOM, and we came up with the idea for me to start a severe malnutrition program every Wednesday. My site is surrounded by a lot of broussey, smaller villages, many of which are not along a main road, are much more poor and have much less access to clean water and a variety of foods, as a result of these circumstances there is much more malnutrition. The idea behind the nutrition program, at least for now, is that on Wednesday's mothers of severely malnourished children will come into the CSCOM, I will weigh their babies, talk with their mothers, bring them to the doctor, and if the doctor agrees they are severely malnourished he will write them a prescription for free Plumpy Nut (an ameliorated packaged peanut butter product to help malnourished babies and kids put on weight). As the weeks have gone on more and more mothers have started coming. There are still a lot of kinks to work out with the program and eventually I'd like to start going out to some of the villages myself, maybe doing animations and a HEARTH (usually a two week program where mothers and their babies agree to come every day, make ameliorated porridge, they see their babies gaining weight and therefore the benefits of the porridge, and every day you give a different animation on a good health practice). I didn't really know where to begin, so for now this is a starting point.
I am also trying to get a girls' group organized with sixth grade girls. The teachers have been striking a lot lately and now they are on vacation for Easter (I assume the vacations being set around Christian holidays is a remnant of the colonial system). But the teacher and the girls seemed excited about it. I said we can make tea and chat. One girl said, "we're going to pound millet" I said no, no pounding millet. Another said, "we're going to fart". I said no, there will be no farting. Chatting! We will chat.
I am hoping to get to know the girls, maybe encourage them to study together, eventually try to tackle the insanely high rate of teenage pregnancy in my town through talking about abstinence and birth control. Everyone feels strongly it is a major problem at my site.
During my training at IST some traditional African healers came and gave a session. The main point of their presentation was to have volunteers encourage healers at their site to form associations. I had previously gone to a meeting with my homologue of traditional healers, so I asked what the next step was. They said it would be encouraging them to form a medicinal garden. Currently, most healers have to walk around in brousse, looking for plants. But if they have a garden, growing the plants themselves, they can better guarantee the quality and of course their availability, hopefully leading to better medicine for the community and an increase in their incomes.
I went and talked with the head of the association who is a very elderly adorable man who looks very wise. He started teaching me some medicines and we were having communication difficulties, but my friend Sungalo (his nephew) then came and explained and he was very enthusiastic. They called all the healers together and had a meeting about a week later, at which point the idea was addressed to the entire group and everyone was very enthusiastic. They said they didn't have a garden now because they would need a well. Currently they pay monthly dues so they would have money to contribute. They said they could find a piece of land, and otherwise they would need a well, fencing, and would like to buy seeds for some plants that couldn't be found in our area.
They said me coming to them and offering help was very important and had never happened before. They said now our hands are together. I am excited about this project because they are into it, they are organized, they have money available, and I think it will be very sustainable. I questioned myself a little bit, like is it ethical to be aiding traditional medicine when I obviously think biomedicine is so superior? But when push comes to shove African medicine is an integral part of the culture, and it is often the first option most Malians have when someone is sick. They usually try African medicine first and if they still don't get better they will then go to the CSCOM. Most people can simply not afford to run to the doctor for everything. And of course there is still a strong belief in the healing power. And there probably is something to a lot of the medicines. It has been around a lot longer than Western medicine. But of course if someone has malaria there is nothing else quite like quinine.
Well we're on the topic of malaria . . . . I was horrified a couple weeks ago when one of my best friends, Sofiatou (she braids my hair) came to the CSCOM and was clearly very, very sick. She couldn't really look me in the eyes or talk at all. She clearly had a very high fever and seemed to be almost to the point of convulsions. No one would give me a straight answer on what was wrong with her, but it seemed ovbious to me it was probably very advanced malaria, the cerebral kind. Finally my homologue said, its hypertension. She is a one hundred pound twenty- three year old. To see my doctor giving her a shot of Norvalgene and not quinine, to hear that her husband had not given her money the day before to come to the CSCOM, saying she wasn't sick. . . . and then when she had somehow come the doctor had sent her home with Cipro and Metro. I was really upset. Its not my place to diagnose medical problems or be involved at all with treatment, but of course under these circumstances . . . . when someone appears to be on the verge of death and you're in a malaria endemic area . . . . it seems obvious to give quinine. So many other times I see it being dished out like candy and have to really wonder if the people (who seem fully functioning) really have malaria.
I realized later everyone, my homologues, the other matrones, her family that flooded the CSCOM and couldn't help but cry when they saw her (neither could I) basically knew it was not hypertension and malaria. But it was a classic case of no one being able to stand up to the doctor. Having to respect the hierarchy. An ambulance came and took her to the hospital. I along with everyone else was really upset. I really didn't know if she was going to make it or if she was going to have permanent mental effects. The thing that got to me was knowing how unnecessary it was. The system had failed her in so many ways.
The good news is they gave her quinine when she got to the hospital and seems to be doing okay now. The other thing that was strange is that people wouldn't let other people get upset. They would say its nothing, its nothing. Let your mind sit. And then when the other people weren't around the health workers were saying amongst themselves, its bad. I guess it is just not really culturally approriate to cry and show how upset you are in front of other people.
On a happier note, I celebrated 8 Mars, or the Eighth of March, International Women's Day with my community. Except we actually celebrated it on the 17th. Yes, this was very strange to me. Jege and a lot of other women had been planning every day for a week before the 8th for a skit they were performing, and then the special 8 Mars fabric that all the women wear on the day could not be found, so they delayed the celebrations for a week.
There was so much drama surrounding the fabric it was unbelievable. I had been told how important fabric was to the culture, but this experience really drove it home for me. Apparently not enough had been made this year. I just finally scored some for myself. It is purple and said equality for women and stopping SIDA (HIV/AIDS).
The celebrations were awesome. The skit that Jege and the other women had been performing was really great. A lot of the women dressed up as men. One was a chief of the town, and another was a swaggrering mumbling drunk (chimmycaman). Jege and a stagiere (matrone in training) gave an animation on stopping female circumscion and SIDA. I thought that was really great but I was a bit confounded because, as I said to my homologue, don't you DO excisions? To which she denied doing it but I have been told by enough other people that she does, so I believe she does. I know she just knows that it is something that is so culturally difficult for me to fathom that she thinks I won't be able to get past knowing she performs them. (And she's right, it is pretty hard for me to understand.) But as another one of my friends pointed out, she may be obliged to do it. I try to reason that at least maybe she is using sterile equipment, doing it more partially . . . but when push comes to shove I really don't know.
The women also did a dance of alcoholics. Young girls did a beautiful traditional African dance that was very moving. Some other young people performed choreographed dances. People sang and lip synched. And then people ate amazing zame. The celebrations lasted all day. It was one of those days where I was filled with love and pride in Jege and in my community.
I just spent my longest stretch at site ever, and it was really good. I learned a lot more about my site. I finally talked with the doctor at my CSCOM about SIDA (HIV/AIDS). On my demand for a volunteer form, they had asked that I help increase awareness regarding SIDA, but since I had come there whenever I asked people about it they acted like it just wasn't a real problem. The awareness had all been done. But after talking more with the doctor (who is more aware of the extent of the problems of any of the other CSCOM employees because of the confidentiality factor) I feel convinced I need to take a very active role in trying to increase awareness. I hadn't wanted to beat a dead horse or focus on it when it seems there are much more immediate needs (malnutrition, lack of clean water, etc.) and it isn't anywhere near an epidemic in Mali at this point. Their levels are comparable to US levels. However, I have now faced that this is the time when it needs to be addressed.
The doctor told me there are four positive people in my town, and seven people in the surrounding brousse. He gave me the name of a SIDA anamatrice who works for ADERA (an NGO), Mata. It is her job to give animations and increase SIDA awareness in our area. He said when they go to brousse together, afterwards everyone agrees to be tested. But the problem in our town is no one will get tested. There are four positive people and only something like five people who had been tested. He said their had been one HIV/AIDS death in our community. Mata said there had been four. It is always really difficult to get definitive answers, and especially on things as sensitive as cause of death, SIDA especially.
Mata is really cool and interested in working together. We're now trying to brainstorm ways to increase awareness regarding prevention and encourage people to get tested. But naturally many people are scared of the stigma. Also, as my good friend Adama told me, there are some people who categorically refuse to believe SIDA exists. They do not believe there are some diseases for which there is no medicinal cure. At this point I am just trying to initiate conversations about SIDA. Even just telling people it exists in our community is a big starter.
I learned a lot in my last month at site. I always say there are surprises every day, and I know there probably will be until the day I leave. Its a process. It keeps things interesting, that's for sure. Tonight I am off with Jege and the other volunteers in my region for a couple more days of training, and then back to site. My parents booked my ticket, so I will be home from June 22-July 13. Can't wait to see everyone! Please send me letters!