On the Move

Times change and so do blogs.

I've moved to a new blog: benoitrivard.wordpress.com

Social Change

I am a social change agent.

At least, I strive to be one. The term was first introduced to me during my internship last year with One Sky, as their mission is to create emerging grounds for social change agents.

So what does this mean? My take on it - my boss would be able to explain it in much more detail - is that social change agents can't be created, so to speak. An organisation or group can, however, create an environment where someone's potential as a leader and social change agent, is fostered for growth.

I've been reflecting on this idea of social change the past few days while I've been bed-ridden with a stomach bug. While working in rural Northern BC and promoting things like energy efficiency and conservation, it's been a struggle for me to bring certain people out of an ego-centric perspective and into an ethno-centric one. It's no easy task, trust me.

From my experience, it's in the delivery of your own perspective that you can create "emergent grounds" for a transcending discussion. What I mean by this is that when one tends to preach, the reaction is to close down and defend your point of view. Let's face it, it's not as easy as changing someone's perspective on the world in one conversation. So, then, how does one affect social change?

I don't claim to have answers, which leaves me in a difficult position in this post. If I were to suggest anything, it would be through interaction. The biggest thing that hinders further change is the inability to hold multiple perspectives. This is a quality I strive to acquire because it allows an individual to detach itself from the ego, reaching broader pastures in terms of perspective.

How else can you work with, for example, loggers and miners? For that matter, how else can you work with anyone that holds a different opinion or perspective than you?

Having recently started writing again, I'm visibly rusty so let me collect my thoughts and continue this post in the near future.

Thanks for watching.

Response to Living La Vida Loca

Although it might sound like I'm reiterating Monsieur P's thoughts and opinions, my focus for this post is more precisely on the over-stimulation that not only today's youth are exposed to, but also anyone living near a television, ipod, blackberry, cell phone, laptop, and/or any combination of these gadgets.

I'll be the first to admith that certain gadgets are a necessity for me. After 2 weeks in Mali, my 4 year old iPod Mini completely shut down; it had done its fair share of laps around the track. That left me in West Africa with my very limited collection of music on my laptop.

The solution? Ask a co-worker from the UK to get me an iPod Classic before making his next trip to Bamako. Problem solved.

I'm going somewhere with this. The point is that there is a fine line between entertainment and necessity. My concern is primarily when necessity becomes a distraction.

For the life of me, I cannot single-task. My attention is all over the map at work and I need to be doing at least 2 or 3 things at the same time, albeit not as effectively as they would be done with 100% of my attention. This is something I grew up with, exposed to the internet from the ripe age of 13-14.

My thoughts are all over the map so I will end it here for now. Ironically enough, I've been listening to my iPod the whole time I spent writing this post.

Sigh.

For the planet, well at least Ottawa

Green.

That's usually the term used for any effort to reverse the erratic uncontrollable planet trashing set forth in the last century. I love it. It's so easy to do, and often you save yourself trouble and money. Just a bit of education on the subject and jumping on board is easy.

Our school board here in Ottawa has professed itself "Green" but has trouble delivering it in, you guessed it, the underprivileged non suburb school; my school. A great Teacher has taken it upon herself to get us all involved and I applaud her efforts. In a week, we planted a new tree, recycled FOR THE FIRST TIME plastic bags and /encouraged the use of mugs. Yeah, mugs. The ones we clean and use again. All we had to do was bring it, and you beverage of choice was 75% off. Stroke of genius. Now we're on our way to recycling plastic bottles, which isn't par in our "green" school board, along with the plastic bags. Our main impediment: It's not in the janitor's collective bargaining agreement. Obviously doesn't matter since I'm sure this bird will figure its way out of its new raincoat.

In Ottawa, I remember this summer that I carried my now empty plastic bottle around the market for over an hour, looking for a place to recycle it. Shockingly, the food court of the Rideau Centre, a main shopping attraction for tourists, had nowhere to recycle bottles. Figures. In the garbage were mounds of bottles and cans waiting to go to the dump to rest for a million years or so.

It's gonna be a long road, my career just started, but here goes educating my students on the environment. By the way, we should call it not "the environment" when it's clearly "our environment" since we live in it.

To Our environment then.

Living la vida loca

Nothing to do with Ricky Martin, pop culture attracts attention


Recently I have discovered that trying to do everything at once only pays off for so long. Eventually, we (or I) succumb to our brain's maximum capacity of 8 short term tasks; though my girlfriend claims to have much more capability in the field. Nevertheless, let's take it easy.

Teaching does ask me to multitask, and so do obviously many other fields and that’s ok for keeping me on an edge. However this year I have chosen to take upon myself additional tasks which are absolutely flooding the schedule. This post isn't about that exclusively in my world, but in that of my students.

Once, it seems, you came home from school and played street hockey or played some other game outside until dinner. Later, you were forced to interact with your parents, brothers, sisters or friends. That's what kept us relatively human. Now, as I get to observe, we, the younger generation, spend more time interacting with a piece of plastic with electricity running through it than anything else. Yet, vending machines with their evil Coke and Chips are to blame for the giant tsunami of fat people ready to take over North America. Hold on a minute and get something right. If you're a parent, and your kid doesn't play outside REGULARLY, there is a problem. Of course, I mean those in capacity physically to do so. Enough rant, let's see the positive.

It's a hard choice to make, letting go, but it's one worth considering. Many initiatives have been put forth by the powers that be to get us active all over again. All I think is necessary to do, is to simplify the whole process. Start young, take the kid away from the Disney movie and give him, or her, a simple set of blocks. I know I kept myself busy for hours with them and it made my imagination grow while teaching me important lessons in gravity; it always wins. Simple things like that work their way outside and the process fixes itself. That way, your kid can eat chips or drink unhealthy pop because he's burning three times that amount of calories in one game of hide and seek. I am not a parent, nor pretend to be. But I have been a kid. And my fondest memories of my childhood have nothing to do with the amount of goals I was able to score in NHL95. All of us were kids once, let's return the favor.

Back to multitasking. On top of not going outside, we as a community in general tend to pile ourselves on with tasks. Society doesn't ask this of us, because, well we are society and we don't want it. This is something we do to ourselves and our kids. School plus hockey plus soccer plus competitions plus homework was always possible. But it was never possible with iPod, TV, Internet, texts, YouTube, streams, games. Since energy consumption is the problem that's growing, my first paragraph would settle it all. Not my stroke of genius, just the obvious.

This blog was all over the place, the next should have more structure, I must be rusty.

Bring it on Thoreau and Ghandi!

New aventures. New Questions. New processes. New approaches.

In the spirit of living birth through death, the road now leads you, the reader, to new musings:

www.benoitrivard.wordpress.com

It has almost been a year since the beginning of this blog and just to think that I was able to share some thoughts with others makes it all worthwhile. In hindsight, laziness got the best of me in many moments where I could have squeezed out some decent insights, especially when overseas.

In order to complete the process of confronting both Mahamadou Diarra and Paul Bunyan, I would like to comment on my experience while going through reverse culture shock.

Initially, I would describe my state as being very fragile and intentional. Part of me feared to step foot in the gigantic Safeway in Smithers. The same thing happened the first few times I spent walking through the Rideau Centre in Ottawa. So much money. So many people with one thing on their mind: what can I buy?

I cannot say that having lived in one of the poorest countries in the world has made me turn to cynicism or become bitter at the "Western" hyper-consumerism. It's not like I didn't see it before, so there's no way I'm going to play the "There's children starving in Africa" card on people in the mall. Guilt may work through other vehicles but I'm not going to drive one of them. There are other ways to invoke change. In fact, this is where I find myself now, in finding ways to make people listen to either what I have to say, or what some of my friends in Mali are trying to communicate.

Having made a handful of presentations to school groups from Grade 3 to Grade 10 (100 on a Monday morning!), it's fairly obvious that stereotypes are alive and omnipresent. That's ok. Would you believe it, some of them are actually true! 

Yes there is poverty in Africa. 

Yes there are starving children with inflated bellies. 

Yes I saw some.

Yes some people live in huts.

Yes there is war.

Yes there are wild animals.

These are some of the stereotypes that often came up when I asked the kids what they thought about when I said the word "Africa".

But do their eyes ever open up when I tell them that I had wireless high speed internet at my office.

Or that I had a TV at my apartment.

Or that an entire village is being powered by a plant the villagers are growing on their marginal lands.

The point is that we can always go beyond and dig deeper. It took me 5 months in West Africa to do it but it doesn't have to. It can be as simple as finding other sources of information on world news. Ok so that link was just a joke, but you get the idea.

I will close with a quote:

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where it should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

Fitna

Dutch M.P. Geert Wilders has been all over the headlines all around the world.

See the film and tell others to watch it. It's provocative and makes people reflect on the foundations of Islam, along with it's role in Western society, even if he is coming from one extreme.

Inform yourself because this issue will become increasingly more relevant in our society. It's not going away.

Note: The film's content is very graphic at times. Consider yourself warned.

Nuque et Face

Départ
Tout début a une fin. C'est vraiment un cliché mais quand même important à comprendre. Mon départ fût modeste, ce qui m'a permis de bien causer avec mes amis proches pendant qu'une pluie surprenante tombait (c'est la saison sèche).

Kaloga, un ami du cartier, m'a raconté que lorsqu'on voit la face d'un étranger, on sait déjà qu'on va un jour voir sa nuque. Ça s'est vu à mon départ puisqu'ils ont l'habitude de voir des étrangers, comme des proches, partir.

Retour
À l'exception du changement de 60 degrés celsius et 8 heures de décalage, le retour à Smithers se passe bien. Il y a eu des changements de personnel à One Sky, ce qui fait que le bureau est présentement composé de nouveaux employés (les deux "anciens" arrivent lundi). Peu importe, le rhytme lent de Smithers facilite la ré-intégration pour le moment.

Le Mali me manque déjà, c'est certain. Mais pendant que certains voient ma nuque, autres me font face. Il reste à voir si et quand ils me verront de derrière...

Comfort in the Trenches

Originally posted on the One Sky website...

Every job description, in its list of tasks and responsibilities, normally ends with a very subtle phrase like “other related duties” or “other various tasks”. In some cases, these “duties” can consist of unpleasant tasks like getting the coffee for the office or photocopying until your brain is fully X-rayed. In my case, these duties have covered the spectrum, from fabricating 4 Danish flags in less than 24 hours, to making small brush fires as part of a massive cleaning job. Of course, One Sky prepared me for any such situations…

My most enriching experiences during this internship have been when I have had to think creatively to find a solution. Let me explain. A few weeks ago, Mali-Folkecenter Nyetaa greeted a delegation of 5 Danish Parliamentarians in the Foreign Affairs Committee by showing them various solar electrification installations (school and health centre) in the village of Tabacoro as well as the progress of the Yèré Yiriwa project (funded by the Danish Cooperation). Coincidentally, this is the native village of the MFC Nyetaa Director, which will play an important part in this anecdote.

Younger brothers in Mali can never say no to an older brother’s request. In this case, the older brother was the director’s and happens to be a highly-ranked military official. Without turning this into a rant, I realize in hindsight that it was an inevitable clash between a young toubabou (white man) in charge of protocol - for a short and jam-packed visit - and a General in his native village looking to make the delegation experience life in a rural Malian village. In all fairness, we both wanted the same thing: for the delegation to enjoy their visit to Tabacoro; we simply had very different ideas on which path to take.

After kindly and ever so gently being told by the General that he never wanted to see my face again and that this was “all about what Benoit wants”, I realized that diplomacy is a tough game to play. Luckily, the collateral damage was minimal and I still have a place to live (the General also happens to be my landlord).

Creativity in conflict resolution is really not something I ever dreamed of putting on my CV. In fact, I have always been one to use my creativity in order to avoid conflict. Because there were essentially 2 informal parties to organize the visit, it could have easily gotten out of hand. The end result was one of great success. The delegation was able to see all the planned sites (school, health centre, solar water pumping system, Yèré Yiriwa presentation, traditional reception) in the budgeted amount of time.

Ciao, Cheers, Farewell, Goodbye

I have about 10 days until my departure. The goodbyes have begun but my work has definitely not ended. I am convinced that it will only end when I get dropped off at the airport, because that’s how it works here. There is always something to do and when you think there isn’t, it’s because the director hasn’t yet found you.

Also, I could write about how much I will miss Mali and all the friends I’ve made. Or about how much time just flew by when, on my 2nd night here I wondered how I would survive for 5 months. I could write about how I am both saddened to leave and excited for new horizons. But I won’t…

Ciao Cheers Farewell Goodbye

March 9th. Already.

The sun has kicked it into top gear as it races by every day, getting increasingly hotter to the point where you wonder if it can actually get any hotter. It seems to prove you wrong every day when you wake up.

So this it. The final stretch. The farewells. The last rush for souvenirs. Tying all the loose ends.

Nothings has been so challenging. Coming home from Amsterdam was never this hard. My roots have never dug so deep in what was once a foreign land.

Bamako

Once you get past the omnipresent smog, the nostril-burning odors, the overcrowded markets and terrifying traffic jams, this city has a charm. It's like watching a movie for the second time, after disliking it the first time, and "getting it".

I have not taken many photos in Bamako for many reasons, mainly because it doesn't feel right. There aren't many monuments or public places that are worth seeing (as a tourist). It feels more right to leave it as a somewhat mysterious place in other people's minds.

Garalo

This village in South-Eastern Mali personifies solidarity and a culture of greeting strangers with open arms. It has recently been lucky enough to have access to electricity - including public lighting - and it has truly transformed their quality of life. The people I have spoken to tell me they have never been so proud to say they are from Garalo because their village illuminates the sky at night. They feel safer and more empowered.

This isn't an attempt to advocate rural electrification or Mali-Folkecenter's projects. This is one toubabou's (white man) impression after having spent the equivalent of more than 3 weeks in Garalo (in 4 different trips). People recognize me and are always so happy to say hello and ask how I'm doing.

Volver

Volver, in Spanish, means to return. Ironically, I saw Pedro Almodovar's film last night at the Centre Culturel Français. The irony lies in that I have begun to "return" to Canada, mentally; at least I hope not physically because then someone might already find one of my fingers or feet back home.

One indication of my pre-emptive return has been through my dreams. Although I don't tend remember them, I do know that I have been dreaming about being back home. It's slightly discomforting because it feels like this lack of being grounded in the present will turn into regret later.

"How was it?"

"What was it like?"

"Did you enjoy your trip to Mali/Africa?"

"What did you learn?"

Those questions are coming like a tidal wave and I can already see it in the distance. My fear lies in my inability to accurately answer those questions. One way to cope is to answer with sarcasm... "Meh, it was alright." "Nothing special." "I've had better experiences."

How do you describe the feeling that you get after a 6 year-old girl knocks at your door and asks you, with the one french word she knows, "poubelle?"?

How do you tell someone that you've seen how some people survive by walking over 10 km one-way hoping to make a bit of money at the market?

Those are a few examples of my experiences but one can imagine the atrocities I haven't seen...

On a lighter note, my Montreal Canadiens were first in the Eastern Conference and are still top of their division. That makes me smile.

Already thinking ahead, I've been experimenting with a WordPress blog to compare with Blogger and eventually decide what I will do after the end of this internship.

Finally, my sister and her boyfriend have recently launched their online eco-friendly and ethical fashion store. From the website:

Alterna Boutique is an online eco-fashion store which offers a variety of work and casual clothing for men and women, as well as clothing for babies. The clothes are made from a variety of environmentally-friendly fabrics such as organic cotton, bamboo, soy, and hemp. Designers featured at Alterna Boutique include HTnaturals, Grace and Cello, NKI, Nixxi and Sckoon. This alternative clothing store is entirely online and the energy consumed by the computers is offset through wind power.

I already have the HTnaturals red polo and it my shirt of choice here in Mali. But don't take my word for it, see for yourself!!

Oh the shameless biased promotion...

Swearing Presidents

---

It's hard. It really is. I have returned from my travels for almost a week but have felt no urge to write about my experiences, either on this blog or in a journal. Although I have a very good reason for not mentioning a major influence on this experience, it has still been difficult to take the time to reflect.

My main struggle in the past few weeks has been to stay in the present. Someone in Smithers once told me that they admire my ability to be entirely where I am, grounded in the present. It has been a strength in the past but now it seems that the future is winning in The Great Mind Race. This is most likely due to the fact that I only have a month remaining before my return to Smithers for 2 weeks of debriefing.  Being in this final stage, it's natural for the mountain climber to get excited about arriving, especially when the terrain flattens out a bit and things seem easier. But often they're not. There may be a raging stream or, Ségou guard dogs waiting for you when you least expect it.

This post will be short. Not because I have nothing to say but because I haven't made anything of my thoughts yet. It's hard to think when living with two housemates and working 9 hours a day but that should be a challenge and not an excuse.

In other hilarious news...

Sarkozy outburst at farming fair

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When Dogs Attack

I write this post in haste because it's Friday afternoon and I desperately need to rest. The heat is starting to come back to when I first arrived when shade and ceiling fans were your best friends.

Before leaving last weekend for Le Festival sur le Niger, I had been reflecting about my lack of "adventures" because my time had been somewhat focussed on work for the past month. Ask and you shall receive...

Last Friday night, as I arrived from the Festival with my host family (relatives of a friend in Bamako), we were greeted by their two seemingly friendly guard dogs in the courtyard. As I went to the washroom, everyone else went into the house to get ready for bed. This then left me, alone, with the dogs. I would draw a diagram to illustrate the path I was required to take but suffice it to say that they were in my way (or is it the other way around?...)

A few dog bites in the back of the leg, some scratches and bruises later, I realized that if I was a thief in Ségou, I would definitely skip that house on my looting spree. Luckily, the dogs have been vaccinated and my host was a pharmacist but it still meant that I faced with some difficulty to sleep while the adrenaline was still swimming in my bloodstream and the dogs were sniffing and knocking at my door. Apparently when they bite, they see it as a mere appetizer for the full course meal.

The rest of the weekend was much more pleasant. Mariko, a colleague who was also in Ségou visiting his family, gave Jack (a new intern) and I a tour of Ségou with his friend Charles on motorbikes. Ségou is a fairly large city next to the Niger river and has recently thrown an annual music festival called Le Festival sur le Niger. Having previously heard about this event, and also the lineup for this year's show, I was quite excited for this weekend. What I didn't realize is that the stage is actually ON the Niger River.

The music. Oh the music. To describe something that special and culturally unique with words would do it injustice. Ok so I realize I just semi-described it but you get the point.

After a week of daily trips to the clinic to get my foot re-bandaged and attempts to follow-up on the Environmental Forum, I will departing next week for a trip to Mopti, Pays Dogon and Djenné.

This time I will make sure not to leave that T-Bone steak in my backpocket.

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Untitled

Blog posts have been few and far between due to a lack of time, health and, quite frankly, motivation. Routine is in full stride. After a long day at work, putting out one tiny fire at a time before it spreads, I am too exhausted to do anything but eat and then drink tea with neighbourhood friends.

We are in the middle of organizing the 2nd Annual National Environmental Forum in Mali and I can say I have been well prepared for it, considering the mad rush that took place while planning One Sky's auction. Last week was overly stressful for me and after keeping up for a few days of 10-12 hour days, I succumbed to the flu going around right now. Now you see how interesting my life has been the past two weeks...

After the Forum I will be taking 2 weeks of holidays to travel, particularly to Ségou, Mopti, Djenné and Pays Dogon. I've decided to travel alone because I have never really done so for such a long trip. This will, I hope, give me more space for personal growth outside the "minimum safe distance".

To respond to Monsieur P's post, I can't really say that life in Bamako is very different from the omnipresent reminders of technology. That said, it's much easier to get away from it, even within the city because, for example, I don't have internet at the apartment.

I wish this post could be longer, more inspiring and with great pictures. But it's not...

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Snow blind, phone deaf, and internet mute.

Taking a holiday: the pure meaning.

How far is Iroquois Falls? Well I'd say it's just far enough to give you a sweet vacation. Now I'm not gonna chatter on about how I rested so well, ate like a king, drank like a fish, built ice rinks, rode snowmobiles, enjoyed the fresh air, slept beautifully and inspired myself through nature's beauty... I'll say what was most important : the disconnect. GOOD GOD how sweet it is to be free form the chains of technology; as it is so well said by new pop icon Timbaland (god forbid anyone would spell anything correctly) in conjunction with J.T. Anyways, I'm not an addict of any major drug, nor the recovered of such an addiction, but I'm pretty sure I've somehow experienced the withdraw from an addiction. I think usually it's referred to as Blackberry plague, or some other cliché stupidity. A disease widely spread in some areas of public transport. But let me tell you I was FREE. Now really, who cares, all vacations are supposed to be like that. But why can't our lives be like that.

Blah blah blah philosophy, we've heard it all. But I know a close friend who's seeing it all. I would think Mali is absolved of technological chains. Though a complete disconnect would be unreasonable, I think I will continue to emulate the three proverbial monkeys mentioned in the title whenever possible for some time to come. I just wonder what it's like to live it.

An important thankyou to the Lagacé family.

Got Sheep?

Forget political. How do we even know when something is socially appropriate to say?

We all have one. It can be described metaphorically as a filter or, in my case, a little man in a rocking chair that either nods or shakes his head when a thought wants to pass the rope bridge from my brain to my mouth.  It seems like lately my little man has rocked himself to sleep. Case in point. While thinking of a clever way to conclude my article for the One Sky website about my much anticipated celebration of la fête de tabaski, I had written the following:

"It's time to put on my "Got Sheep?" bib and praise Allah. I hope Jesus isn't watching!"

Before sending said article, I decided to consult my friend Carol and she thought it was hilariously inappropriate. As I write this now, I keep thinking to myself how in tarnation I could have deemed this appropriate for anything but, perhaps this blog as a retrospective thought.

I write this now because I find myself having immense difficulties to write diplomatically for the editorial of the newsletter I'm putting together at work. I've always disliked the ordinary but sometimes that feeling just has to be put aside. The problem is that, in this case, the bitter pill just does not want to go down.

With all this said, there is also the other extreme to consider. At what point are we standing still, not even walking on egg shells? Carlos Mencia, a somewhat controversial stand-up comic, addresses this debate in his act where he says that he wishes everyone had the same freedom of speech he possesses. To make his point, he challenges people to try to tell his jokes at work. Game, Set, Match.

Wherever people stand in this debate, I believe the cross-cutting element is culture. This may very well be the rocking chair to my little man. The only solution is to write in a culturally-neutral style. If that's the case, I hope my creativity isn't watching!

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Joy

I received an email from Gregory Biniowsky, a One Sky Board Member, who shared an inspiring quote by Uruguayan essayist Eduardo Galeano:

"It is not a certainty that refers to the 'Great Beyond'. Instead, it refers to the 'Great Here and Now', it refers to the joy of the continuing human adventure on Earth. We have the joy of our joys, and also we have the joy of our sorrows, because we are not interested in the painless life that consumerist civilization creates, promotes and sells…and we are proud of the price of so much pain we pay to feel so much love. We have the joy of our errors, stumblings that reveal the passion of wandering and the love of the journey; and we have the joy of our defeats, because the struggle for justice and beauty is worthwhile even when it is lost. And above all, above all, we have the joy of our hopes; when disillusionment is in vogue, when disenchantment has become an item of universal and mass consumption, we continue to believe in the amazing power of the human embrace."

It has not been easy to match people here with their thoughtful wishes/blessings for the new year. I've always been accustomed to say "happy new year/bonne année" and moving on. More to come...

(I'm trying to build suspense to boost readership. It's a foolproof plan!)

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Truth in Advertising

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I shook hands with a guy who shook hands with the guy who shook hands with the devil

I am a boy hiding under a desk in a nuclear war.
I am looking down, walking through traffic.
I am a 4 year old’s question.
I am a writer’s block on a tight deadline.
I am the sideline on an in-bound call.
I am a chess match.
I am a split horizon between night and day.
I am a photograph, stuck in time.
I am searching for Carmen Sandiego.
I am a tug rope at the office pic-nic.
I am digging for a creative well.

One could say that I’ve been busy. In truth, I simply haven’t taken the time to sit down and write my impressions, especially of la fête de tabaski. Now, I’m afraid I will lose them.

At 9am, every mosque is filled to capacity by men who will then return home to sacrifice a sheep to Allah. This is done to thank Allah for sparing Abraham’s only son’s life when he was willing to sacrifice him. Well, if you’re wondering, I am not a sheep killer. My colleague Tounkara came to pick me up right after the prayers were finished at the mosque. I may not have killed a sheep but, from my apartment to his family’s house, I sure saw enough of them hanging from tree branches and being butchered.

Once slaughtered, the sheep is dissected by the men of the family. They work meticulously until each edible part is passed onto the women. It is now their turn to each prepare the meat in a different way. One could call this the Malian version of a “cook-off”.

After there was nothing left of the sheep, I wish I could say that there were exciting rituals of song and dance. However, the rest of the day consists of 2 activities: eating and resting. Just when the button of my pants popped, I’m told it’s time to visit some friends and family… where more sheep meat awaits.

As for the social side of these festivities, I can put it simply by saying that I now have an adopted family here in Bamako. Tounkara’s family, probably without realizing it, showed me why this is, for me, the most human place on Earth.

We now fast forward to December 24th, where I’m with the MFC Director Ibrahim, his wife (my supervisor) Johanna and their two daughters, Batoma and Sira. We celebrate Christmas with a succulent meal followed by the presents. The next day was much less quiet since Ibrahim invited about 20 family members to do what people here do best during the holidays, eat.

I can honestly say that I haven’t been homesick during these past few weeks, as everyone is spending time with their respective families. That, I think, is a testament to the family and friends I have made here (without forgetting my own of course!).

On a slightly different note, I can proudly say that I shook hands with a guy who shook hands with the guy who shook hands with the devil. Confused? My friend Adama recently took me out in a village called Kati, 15 km outside of Bamako, to spend the afternoon with some of his family. He introduced me to them one by one and last but not least was his uncle, “le colonel”. As I took a seat beside Le colonel, he quickly found out my nationality and proudly said that he served Lt. Gen. (Ret) Roméo Dallaire in Rwanda for 6 months. He was the leader of the Rapid Response Team that was directly under Dallaire’s command. Umm… words to explain this… wow?...

These things never happen with any warning or time to prepare the thousand questions that are floating in your mind. Just before I was able to grab a few of those questions, Le colonel politely asked me my age. Only men of 50 years or more were “allowed” to sit in this area so he kindly thanked me for coming to visit. Adama and I then went to have some tea and a delicious lunch with our demographic.

The following night, I went out with Tounkara and his friend, “le petit commandant”. Based on these two encounters, I’m convinced nobody in the Malian Military actually has a name. Le petit commandant is indeed a short man, but that didn’t stop him from spending a year in Darfur with the African Union forces. He recently returned in mid-November and, unlike my meeting with Le colonel, I had the chance to pick his brain. It’s the kind of experience you never really imagine because all of a sudden, a conflict that seemed so distant – physically and metaphorically – has a face to it.

So what’s next? I think I can only hope to, one day, shake hands with the guy who shook hands with God. His name is .

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Sheep and mango trees

“Did you realize there was a live sheep in the trunk?” That’s a question I never, in my right mind, thought I would ever ask someone but alas, the man sharing a taxi with me (and another MFC intern) proved me wrong. There are sheep everywhere. Dozens lie on top of buses. Others sit, tied to a pole while counting down their last days. Most people in Mali are muslim and therefore, preparing for the fête de tabaski where they will savour some sheep in large families.

A colleague has invited me to spend this holiday with him and his family and I told him it would be an honour to join them. I guess you could say that the turkey is going to look a little different this year…

It has been the first sign that the holidays are coming. No Santa Claus paraphernalia at every street corner. No decorations coming out November 1st. And certainly no pressure to empty bank accounts on scented candles and power tools. In fact, the thought of the holidays hadn’t even crossed my mind until last week when I got an email from my parents asking me what I wanted for Christmas. Would it be too much to ask for every child in Mali to get an education and a full stomach?

I’m currently reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs and it has been difficult at times, especially when he discusses how easily malaria can be mitigated in Sub-Saharan Africa by distributing bed nets and anti-malarial medicine. You can’t find a bed net anywhere in Garalo, either in a house or a store. Colleagues at work sometimes seem to disappear for about a week and every time I ask, the answer is what I fear: malaria.

It’s probably too late to suggest this as most of this blog’s readership have probably finished their shopping but I want to throw it out there in your consciences anyway. Consider making a donation on behalf of a friend, brother, sister, cousin, neighbourhood barber, yodelling teacher, local 7-11 clerk, father, mother and/or step-(all of the above). If you don’t know where to start, here are some places:

One Sky
Amnesty International
UNICEF

If you are worried about the way your money will be used, I suggest One Sky’s Sowing A Seed program as 80% of it goes directly to buying school supplies (the other 20% is for administration costs to keep the program viable). If I’ve won you over with the bed nets in Garalo example, send me an email and we can figure out a way to get some there.

As sheep replace turkeys and mango trees replace Christmas trees, my thoughts will be with all of you back home. Joyeux Noël et Bonne année à tous.

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The Bottomless Oil Well

If the village of Garalo and the work of Mali-Folkcenter Nyetaa are a sign of things to come for rural Africa, the future is bright. My latest journey to this rural village in the south of Mali began when I was asked to accompany a Dutch engineer, Sander, and a masters student (Inge) because they were in need of an interpretor. They were leaving the next day for what became a 6 day trip; this is what I have come to expect while working here... Plan A's don't really serve a purpose.

There is no doubt in my mind that MFC Nyetaa and the villagers of Garalo are going down in the record books. The electric current in Garalo was generated for the first time from vegetable oil in what has become the largest bio-fuel electrification project in Africa. The 125 Kva generator – one of three at the power plant – that feeds electricity into over 170 homes gives light, refrigeration and security to about 4,700 people.

And I was there to witness it.

The scale of this project is overwhelming when you walk around the village at night or see the sheer size of the generator running. Through my role as an interpretor, I was lucky enough to better understand the mechanics of both, even down to specific details like the piston pressure adjustments required to switch to bio-fuel. This was mostly thanks to Sander, the engineer who installed the generator sets last May. He began working on ships at the age of 17 as an apprentice until he became chief engineer a decade or so later. Having now started his own company, Brodtech, he has installed generator sets not only in Mali but also Tanzania, with many more on the horizon and has done so at one third of the price other companies had quoted because, as he told me, he just wants enough money to put bread on the table.

Two of my days were spent accompanying Inge while she surveyed about 35 households, mainly through the family chiefs. Her research looks into consumer use of energy in terms of appliances currently used and potential ones in the future to determine how much the grid could handle. Most interviews were done through a translation train starting from english, to french, to bambara and back the other way again. After that experience, I've realized that a message is initially so fragile when being transmitted through a roller-coaster of interpretation. The ride gets even bumpier when the message is only understood by engineers or mechanics, both of which I certainly am not.

The interviews gave me a much better understanding of the villagers' opinion of this newfound access to electricity. Some people, mostly the less fortunate living off their land, found the monthly fee of 6,500 CFA Francs (about 14$ cdn) too much for their budgets. They were collectively asking to change from a monthly fee system to a meter-based system where you pay for what you consume.

If only it were that easy...

In order for this whole project to be sustainable, it was decided that a private company (ACCESS) founded by the Mali-Folkecenter Nyetaa would be responsible for the operation of the power plant. Currently, ACCESS barely makes any profit, only enough to continue growing. They have explained to their customers that as the number of total subscribers increases, they will be provided with longer hours of operation (it's currently 5 hours every night but they are about 20 new customers away from being able to offer 6 or 7 hours nightly) and perhaps be able to switch to a meter-based system. Without having to delve back too far into my managerial economics courses (I still get shivers when I hear someone say "marginal cost"), the simple explanation is that there is a base cost (fuel, salaries,etc) that ACCESS needs to cover and this meter-based system, combined with an insufficient base of subcsribers, would cause immediate losses.

This is where the debate of economic development to eradicate poverty begins... but I will leave it there because it's one where I am sitting on the fence.

Jatropha crops are growing and people will soon be able to sell them in exchange for some extra income that could potentially go towards paying these seemingly pricey electricity bills. One villager described jatropha as being their bottomless oil well. If this cycle does become sustainable, the future looks bright in terms of access to electricity for rural Mali and perhaps all of rural Africa.

I'd like to end this post by welcoming "Monsieur P" as a contributor to this blog. If his next posts are as humourous and insightful as his first, we are in for a real treat.