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...

Chapeaux

Interprète

On a encore ajouté un nouvel élément à mon gabarit d'homme à tout faire. Je quitte encore une fois pour Garalo demain mais cette fois-ci, non comme photographe et journaliste mais plutôt avec mon chapeau d'interprète. Les génératrices de la centrale électrique à Garalo ont été importé des Pays-Bas et l'ingénieur-en-chef de cette phase du projet est de retour pour 2 semaines. Puisqu'il ne comprend pas très bien le français, je l'accompagne pour les quelques jours pour jouer au jeu de téléphone. Il est fort probable qu'à certains moments, il y aura un employé à la centrale qui agira comme interprète du Bambara au Français donc il faut espérer que le message traverse les haies de la langue.

Stratégiste

Les deux dernières semaines ont été acharnu puisque mes tâches de design de matériaux de communication ont cédés leurs places pour la rédaction d'une stratégie de communication. Il s'agit de la première fois que le MFC entreprend une telle tâche donc le défi se présente aussi comme une opportunité. Je suis imprégné dans le pratique. En fait, c'est une lacune sur laquelle je cherche toujours à m'améliorer. Ce nouveau chapeau de stratégiste semble un peu trop grand pour le moment mais je cherche à le faire rétrécir.

Colocataire

La délégation néerlandaise comprend aussi une consultante qui va passer 3 semaines à Bamako. Le Mali Folkcenter Nyetaa (c'est le nom officiel donc je vais l'utiliser à partir de maintenant) appartient deux apartements: celui où j'habite et un autre dans le même cartier. Puisque cette consultante va aménager avec moi pour les 3 prochaines semaines, on a décidé que ce serait mieux de s'installer dans l'autre apartement puisqu'il est beaucoup plus grand. J'ai vraiment hésité puisque mes racines commençaient à bien creuser cette terre; c'est aussi à cause que ma formation avec One Sky était surtout axée sur l'épanouissement en dehors de sa zone de confort et je crains être trop confortable. Il s'agit peut-être d'une opportunité pour découvrir différents moyens d'éviter le sentiment d'être isoler. Vous allez tous comprendre dès que j'ai la chance de prendre quelques photos.

Bon, c'est quel chapeau que je vais porter aujourd'hui...

Africa Africa

Toubabou. That is what they call me in Bambara and it means “homme blanc”.

The Flights

It didn’t take long to get acquainted with my seat partner on the plane leaving from Montreal because he was also going to Bamako, but to work for a Canadian mining company in the East of Mali. He has been working there for about 18 months with a pretty nice routine: 2 months of work, 1 month off at home. It was quickly apparent, however, that we were there for different reasons and in different capacities but I did not let that affect my impressions of him.

The flight from Paris to Bamako was delayed for about an hour because there were 3 Malians being deported back to Mali and they were cuffed at the ankles and the wrists, something the other Malians in the plane did not appreciate. They certainly vocalized their opinion, which quickly grew into a shouting match on the plane where the police came onboard and intervened by taking off the 3 “prisoners”. The unfortunate thing is that, had the other Malians been quiet, these refugees would have returned home instead of spending another few nights in prison. That said, sometimes a person’s convictions outweigh any logic and there is certainly honour in that.

The Arrival

It felt like a heavy, musky wall of heat as soon as I stepped off the plane. Passing through customs was very easy and the challenge lied more in grabbing my luggage from the belt and passing through security. As soon I stepped out of the airport there was a crowd of people and I missed my “Benoît Rivard – MFC” sign. After about 2 seconds of panic, I found a phone booth where I made a few phone calls and found the MFC driver that had come to get me.

The first night was spent at Johanna and Ibrahim’s house (my supervisor and the MFC director, respectively). It’s a beautiful home in a not so beautiful setting; of course this is basing “beauty” on a completely different set of standards. The next morning I met their 2 gorgeous little daughters Batoma and Sari (I think those are their names, not 100% sure). Batoma is 4 and already speaks 3 languages: Finnish (Johanna is from Finland), Bambara and French. It becomes quite humbling when a 4 year old is translating what her 2 year old sister is saying to you because she only speaks Bambara and Finnish.

Mali Folkecenter

Yesterday was my first day at work and my first impressions were of amazement at how much the MFC is doing simultaneously. I won’t go into detail on their projects because their website already describes most of it but one project worth mentioning is how they have developed and installed a power plant that runs on jatropha oil. It feeds electricity to a village of over 4,000 people so this is no run-of-the-mill bio-diesel generator. I will eventually make a field trip with some of the staff to take pictures and write about this project so more details will follow in the next few months.

The MFC office has wireless internet so I will be able to stay “connected” to a certain degree so feel free to send me an email if you have questions that I am not answering in my posts.

Varia

It is always hot, day and night. People drive with about a 2 inch buffer zone between cars or motorcycles. The local neighbourhood kids have already come to see me about 5 times in 2 days, one of them is called Bogaah. I am sharing my living accommodations with a family of lizards. Nobody speaks French in the market, only Bambara. All the vegetables are miniature compared to what we are used to eating. Bamako feels like a maze of identical streets and main roads; reference points are your lifelines. I am having a lot of difficulty remembering people’s names at the office. I have yet to play my guitar so I will go do that now.

I have posted the pictures I’ve taken so far on my flickr page (link in the side bar) but there aren’t many of the city itself because apparently the police will confiscate your camera if they catch you taking pictures.

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