Staying in Mali

A number of foreign embassies have asked their citizens to leave.  The US Embassy has advised to “consider” leaving.  After the unfortunate hostage situation in Algeria last week, some mission organizations here decided to immediately evacuate their people. 
So let me explain why I feel quite at ease staying in Mali at this time: 
Think of a town that is 6-8 hours of travel distance away from your house.  The fighting and bad guys have never been closer than that to us.  The capital of Mali where we now live (Bamako) is a sprawling city of 2 million or more residents.  For the moment all is calm and peaceful here, but when there have been problems (political takeovers or protests for example) it happens downtown across the river from us, not in a residential neighborhood like ours.  Security is tighter in the city than ever with increased police checkpoints and searches.  A lot of French flags have been put up to show support for the French military.  I’ve been asked if I’m French regularly in the past weeks, and when I say no the response is something like, “oh, too bad… well, Americans are good, too.”  Several taxi drivers who are clearly Muslim (as judged by their taxi’s décor) have commented to me about how awful they think the Islamists in the north are with enforcing Sharia law and cutting off people’s hands and banning music and all,  and how we need to get them out of Mali.  The attitude of the general public seems favorable to white people, and people seem grateful and even enthusiastic about the military intervention in the north.  I believe that the idea of being kidnapped now within the city is very improbable; not any more likely than the chance of being kidnapped here at any other time.  It is terrible what happened with the hostages in Algeria.  I think it is easily understandable though that it is not a good time to be in vast open desert areas in the north- known to be inhabited by kidnapping terrorists, and especially in large groups of white people.  I don’t have any illusions of importance to imagine that the bad guys would come to my neighborhood and hunt me down to kidnap me.  There is always some inherent risk in living in a place like Mali even under the best circumstances, and obviously since I do live here, I’ve chosen to accept that risk.  There is also a risk every time you step out your front door or get into your car.  Such is life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating foolishness or unnecessary bravery.  It is a serious situation and we are praying daily for the military intervention, the government, and the Malian people, as well as for personal guidance.  And we feel at peace that for now we can stay and continue on with our life and work here, that there isn’t any threat great enough to us to warrant us leaving at this time.
Also, if we were to leave, where would we go and what would we do?  If needed we can flee to a neighboring country.  But is it really safer to be across the border in another country, likely a country that is sending some of its soldiers to help fight in northern Mali.  (the bad guys aren’t too happy with them, either)
If our organization asks me to leave I will.  But then what?  Wait until it is safe to return.  When might that be?  After the north is liberated?  How long might that take?  And even then won’t there still be angry al-Qaeda guys somewhere with an inclination to kidnapping? 
I know there are plenty of people who don’t agree with me on all this, but these are my thoughts anyway.  I’m open to comments and differing opinions if you should want to reply. 

Village visits and our New Year's holiday

Fancy outfits and fancy dancing on New Year's Eve.

During the recent holiday break we spent 10 days in Koutiala.  For 3 ½ of the days we were attending a staff retreat for our mission.  We only see some of the people in our group, those who live far away, once or twice a year, so it was really nice to have everyone all together for a few days.  It ended with a big New Year’s Eve party full of food, singing, and dancing. 

The best part for me was that we spent 2 days in villages doing outreach with Centre Esther.  I love going to villages! 
On December 27^th we went to Finzankoro, the village I spent 3 weeks in last March trying to work on my Bambara language.  This was really my favorite village visit ever because I was going back to where I had been, where I knew people and they knew me.  I was excited to see the family I had stayed with.  Can it really have been 9 months since I stayed with them?  The 2 boys who were 6 months old back in March are now 15 months old and walking around.  They both had completely forgotten me and didn’t want the white lady to hold them. 
It took about an hour to get there on a very rough and dusty dirt road.  You can’t expect to ever go more than about 30mph on a road like this, and sometimes much slower as you are swerving around whatever needs to be avoided.  There were 6 of us crammed into a small Toyota pickup, so I was glad that it only took about an hour to get there.  

Playing a game with kids in a village.

Eliane did a health teaching in the village church.

We started by singing some songs and then I went off with the kids while the adults stayed in the shelter to hear a health teaching and presentation.  Everyone from the village’s church was there as well as plenty of people who don’t attend the church.  The village chief was even there with his counsel!
We distributed lots of clothes and some toys and JP did cleaning and bandaging of wounds and we prayed for healing for sick people.   Then we got to eat a nice lunch of rice with sauce.  After lunch everyone sits around to chat and rest and the young men boil up Malian tea and offer little shot glasses of the syrupy drink to whoever is interested.  Finally about an hour before sunset we asked for the road.  When you visit someone you have to ask for the road, you can’t leave until they say its there.  We wanted to get back before dark, this time of year that’s around 6:30pm.
It was a really nice day, and our other village outreach - January 3rd in Ngolonianaso, was similar.

 So we were at the retreat for 3 ½ days, 2 days of the 10 were traveling to and from Bamako, 2 days were in villages, so that leaves 2 ½ days I haven’t mentioned.  I had hoped to spend that time going around to visit friends and do some fun stuff during our trip, but unfortunately I spent almost all of that free time in bed with a fever and some kind of nasty cold/flu.  The weather was terribly cold for Mali, even for it being cold season.  It dipped down into the 50’s every night!  With no heating in the house that’s quite chilly and I think that it contributed to me getting sick.  Now, 2 weeks later, I am much better but still coughing a bit.

Jean-Patrick cleaning and bandaging wounds.

This girl got a dress and some new sandals, I think she is happy inside but just not used to smiling for the camera!

Want a chicken?

Before getting out of a village we had visited we pulled over so that the ladies could buy some charcoal (the prices for some things are cheaper in villages than in town.)  This young man was passing by and stopped.  It was pretty strange, but he said that he noticed me and appreciated that I would come to his village, and would I like a chicken? 
Who wouldn't like to have a chicken?
But, really?  I get a chicken from a stranger just because I am white and I happened to be in his village?  Yep.  He also called his mother over to come and meet me. 
The chicken kind of matched my outfit, which was also given to me by a young African fellow (the fabric for the outfit was given to me, I sewed it into clothes myself.)  That was a bit less weird though, a friend who was staying with us for a few weeks gave the fabric to me as a gift.  Have you ever gotten a cool present from a stranger?

LOST DOG

My Three Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Days… and the best possible outcome.

Ridiculous.  This is how Teddy was sleeping.

He likes his Christmas present from my mom.

On Friday morning I stepped out the door of our apartment at 6:30am with my sneakers laced up and the dog’s leash in my hand.  I had dragged myself out of bed early to go for a run with the dog.  Usually when I get up early like this I can hear Teddy’s excited whine noises coming from outside as soon as I’ve turned on a light in the house.  If he could form words out of those noises I think he would be saying “yippee, you’re up! hurry, hurry, I’m waiting for you, lets go run!”  So on Friday morning when I stepped out the door and still didn’t hear Teddy I thought it strange.  I wondered if maybe he was up on the roof of the apartment building.  I know he goes up there often as evidenced by the many piles of dog poo I discovered when I went up to take pictures last week.  So I called for him, but no response.  I called again.  Then I walked around the building.  No Teddy. 
“Jean-Patrick!  Teddy’s not here!”  I shout-whispered into the bedroom window.  I went to the gate door to see if Teddy was in the street.  He wasn’t. 
I went out into the street shouting for my dog and I did a 10 minute jog looping the immediate area calling and scanning for him as I went.  I was expecting him to come bounding around a corner at any second.  I went back home to let JP know I hadn’t found him yet.  This wasn’t normal.  JP talked to the night guard who prowls around our building and the neighboring one all night.  He said he had seen the dog for sure at 5am but wasn’t sure after that.  Someone must have left the gate door unlatched and the dog got out and went for an adventure. 
I did a longer search on foot, and JP went out on the motorcycle to call and look before he had to leave for school.  We didn’t find Teddy but we were hoping that he would show up at home at any moment.
By that afternoon I was in tears, and my heartache continued for 3 long days.
If you are not a dog lover you might not understand this very well.  Let me try to explain. 
Teddy is not just some animal to me, he is my buddy.  He keeps me company when I am home alone, and he serves as my personal security service by barking if anyone comes near the door.  If I come back to the house after being away, even for a short time, Teddy reacts like a kid on Christmas morning.  You can’t help but feel happier when you get that kind of welcome home.  He is my running partner and motivater.  It’s a lot easier to get up and go at 5:30 or 6am if I know that he is waiting for me, super enthusiastic to go running.  And I think theres something about caring for another being – giving him food and washing him, ect, that adds to feelings of mutual affection.  I know that he needs me, and I need him, too.  Anyway, bottom line is that I love my dog.  And to know that he was gone was overwhelming.
Where we lived before it might not have been so scary.  But we live in the city now.  Three sides of our neighborhood are edged by highway type roads with masses of rushing traffic.  The fourth side is the river.  After he’d been gone a few hours I knew that he must have either gone too far away and couldn’t find his way home, or he had been hurt (or killed) and couldn’t get himself home.  For three days I kept imagining him with broken legs, huddled on the ground somewhere, starving to death.  I went out searching for him, looking everywhere but also scanning the trash piles and open sewer canals to see if there might be a furry mass there.  It was unbearably sad for me, and I was surprised at how much Jean-Patrick was affected as well.  When an insensitive friend asked “oh well… will you get a new dog?”  JP replied with “I don’t want a new dog, I want Teddy.” 
I think the hardest part was just not knowing.  If we knew he was dead we could have closure and stop wondering and waiting and hoping for him to come home. 
Saturday morning I worked on making a LOST DOG poster and JP took it to the photocopy shop.  I glued over 20 of them onto cement electric poles at busy corners of the neighborhood.  I wanted to know that we had done all we could do. 
Someone called on Sunday morning saying they thought they saw Teddy the night before.  (That’s not really very helpful, is it?)  JP went to meet them and of course Teddy wasn’t around.  I doubt that it had been our dog because it wasn’t that far from the house and I know he could find his way home from there.  Also, there are all sorts of dogs roaming the streets all the time here, and they all look pretty similar.
Throughout the three awful days we did a lot of praying.  Pretty much every night as a habit when we do bedtime prayers we ask God to protect us and our animals and our house.  But this was different.  I prayed many desperate prayers with tears asking God to please not let Teddy suffer, and if he was still alive to please send angels to guide him home.  JP and I had discussions about why God allows bad things to happen, and about how we know that God is still Good no matter what, and that it wouldn’t be too hard a miracle to bring Teddy back to us.  My hope was running out though. 
On Sunday night I picked up Teddy’s cushion, where he always lounges around in the house, and I hid it under our bed.  I didn’t want to look at it anymore. 
At 2:45am on Monday morning I woke up hearing dog whining sounds and I jumped up and shouted out the window, “Is it Teddy?!”  The guard replied that it was Teddy, so we hurried to open the door.  The guard said that 2 young guys brought the dog (at 2:45am?!) to the gate and said he’d been with them for the last 2 days.  The guard had been spreading the word about the dog being missing and they said they knew where to bring him back to without needing to call the phone number on the posters.  (sounds a bit sketchy to me, I mean really, 2:45am?!  And then the next evening they came by to ask for money… sounds like a dog-napping kind of.)  Anyway, Teddy was thankfully not hurt and seemed to have been fed.  He was filthy and stinky, as though he had played in the open sewers and then slept in puddles of sheep pee.  I gave him an extreme bath and took care of that.  I don’t understand it all but I’m just so glad he got home, really an answer to our prayers, and I think a miracle.

-----So this story happened and was written just before Christmas.  The rest of the story is that last week, just 3 weeks after going missing for the first time, Teddy ran away again!  He followed the neighbor kid out the gate at 6am (according to the guard) and took off.  This time he showed up on his own at 5am after being gone 2 whole days.  Again he was unhurt, and this time not even dirty.  He threw up hair and bones all morning and was fine after a long sleep.  Clearly we cannot let him be outside anymore unless he is chained up.