we're awfully low

I've been looking at some information online lately.  Its like I'm doing a research project or something, only I don't need to.  It's completely self-imposed and out of my own interest - yes, I guess I'm a bit of a bookish-nerd.  This started when I asked myself, "Where does Mali rank among the poorest countries in the world?" The answer I found is that Mali is certainly among the very poorest countries in the world, but there is more than one way to measure poverty.  Anyway, I've been especially fascinated with a couple of lists and I thought you might find this stuff interesting too.  Or maybe not.  But by giving this little report its like I'm finishing with my project and now I can start studying up on other intriguing topics.  Hey, it's what I do for fun.

The first list is the United Nations' HDI list.
"The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare."
So this list rates each country's development and isn't a measurement of money per se, although there is of course a big connection between the monetary wealth of a country and the level of development.
Countries are measured and put into 1 of 4 lists of 46 or 47 countries each. The lists are:
1. Very High Human Development
2. High Human Development
3. Medium Human Development
4. Low Human Development. 
On the most recent bottom list (the least developed countries in the world,) of the 46 countries listed, 36 of them are in Africa.  And the 10 lowest (worst) countries on the list are all in Africa.

 The World's 10 Least Developed Countries
(#1 being the very least developed country in the world):
10. Burundi
9. Guinea
8. Central African Republic
7. Eritrea
6. Mali
5. Burkina Faso
4. Chad
3. Mozambique
2. Democratic Republic of the Congo
1. Niger

So from one perspective, we could say that Mali is the 6th poorest country in the world (or technically the 6th least developed country, but I see these as being kind of the same thing.)  I noticed that Chad (Jean-Patrick's home country) was very low on the list too.  If you want to see the whole thing for yourself you can check it out here:  LIST of countries
The other list I want to share is the World Bank's list of poorest countries in the world, this one can be seen here: 2nd LIST  On this list the countries are ranked according to GDP (gross domestic product) per capita.  The GDP is not a exactly a measure of personal income, but it is "often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living."  The GDP for America is about $50,000.  Obviously there are lots of people in America with an income less than that, and lots of people making more.  Somehow the big brainy folks average things out or whatever so that we can scientifically compare countries, and that is as much as I need to understand.  I have a degree in Sociology, but I hate math, so I don't want to think any deeper about all the calculations.  I'm happy just to look at the data once it has been calculated.
The World's Poorest countries
(based on GDP, #1 is the poorest)
1. Democratic Republic of Congo  ($422 GPD per capita)
2. Burundi
3. Eritrea
4. Liberia
5. Niger
6. Central African Republic
7. Malawi
8. Madagascar
9. Mozambique
10. Togo
11. Guinea
12. Ethiopia
13. Guinea Bissau
14. Mali  ($1214 GPD per capita)
----
22. Chad  ($1493 GPD per capita)

And FYI, USA has the 7th highest GPD in the world.  Did you think it was #1?

According to this 2nd list, Mali is the 14th poorest country in the world.  Whether it is 6th poorest or 14th poorest, it is still awfully low on the lists.  I guess that what makes both Mali and Chad look a bit better on the 2nd list is that there are natural resources that boost the economies a bit (gold in Mali and oil in Chad.)  The average citizen has not benefitted at all from the money these resources have brought in.  Mali and Chad both have some serious problems with corruption, but that is another list for another day.

English School update

Here is one of the signs pointing the way to our new and improved location.





For the past year I have been teaching English classes a couple nights a week, and I love it!   The school was started a few years ago by some people here, and it has really grown.  Today there are 10 of us involved in some way as staff, and we represent 5 different organizations.  I love that it is a cooperative effort between groups!  There are now 100 students spread out in the different classes, usually 10-15 students in each class, plus there is a conversation café night once a week that brings another 25+ students to the center.

The teachers are not paid, we do this work as volunteers.  Beyond teaching English, we hope to build friendships with the students. 
The students pay a low fee to take classes, but it is enough to cover rent and utilities for the building, and for books.
WE RECENTLY MOVED TO A NEW BUILDING!  We were in a house in which we used the living room as our classroom.  The location of that building was great, especially for me as I could walk there, but there was not enough space for any more students or classes.  It also was having some issues with a leaky roof, so it was time to find a solution to these problems.
The building that we have moved to was used before as a small elementary and high school for missionary kids up until the coup d'état happened. After the coup and up until we moved in, the building was not being used, so we were happy to move in and put it to good use.  It is possible that in a couple years the kids' school will be able to start again, but for now this is a great solution.
The new place is in a different neighborhood, so I have to take a taxi to get there, but that is the only negative and there are many positive things about it.

You can see some students in the 2 classrooms I teach classes in.  The new building has more rooms so we can hold multiple classes simultaneously.  The rooms are brighter because of more windows and they get more air circulating.  When the power cuts (as it often does), there is a generator we can start up so we can continue class with lights and fans on.  It is also at the end of a quiet street, so we don't hear noisy traffic like we did in the old place.

garibout boys: modern day slaves

The boys carry old tomato paste cans or small plastic buckets to receive food or money as they beg on the streets each day.  Here you can also see a couple of cheap plastic shoes that belong to someone lucky - many of the boys don't seem to have shoes at all.

In Mali there is a form of modern day slavery which involves parents giving their young sons to Muslim teachers, or Marabouts.  The families seem to think they are doing a good thing and that they deserve to be blessed for sending their sons away like this, for the cause of Islam.  The boys study the Koran, and eventually they will be able to recite most if not all of it by heart in Arabic.  They are not given any other sort of formal education.  The don't learn to speak or read or write in French.  They don't study history or science or math.  Instead they spend a lot of time begging on the street.
A Marabout (Muslim teacher) may be responsible for several dozen boys.  By responsible I mean that he sees to it that they learn the Koran, and beyond that he is basically their slave master.  The boys are generally not provided with food or clothes (or medical care, or...anything).  They are sent out each day to beg for something to eat (I've never seen a fat garibout!) as well as for money that they must bring back at the end of the day to give to their Marabout or else they risk a beating.
Any time I go out on the street, and especially if I am going to a store, a restaurant, or traveling by bus, I am confronted by these boys begging for money.  I do not give money because I know it will just go in their Master's pocket and I do not want to support the system.  I have sometimes given them food if I have something to give (a banana, a leftover half of a sandwich, a piece of candy) and they are quick to share with their buddies and gobble it up.  The problem is that there are always a bunch of these boys and it can be really overwhelming to be surrounded by 5 or 10 beggars when I have nothing (or only 1 or 2 bananas) to give.  But I make it a point to smile at them and say hello, sometimes ask their names.  I refuse to ignore or look past them, to treat them as worthless.  Though they may be dressed in dirty ill-fitting clothes, (likely the only set of clothes they have), and they spend their days as poor beggars, though they sleep wherever they can find a space, and eat whatever they can get their hands on, these boys were created in the image of God and they are absolutely precious to Him.  These are human beings with incredible potential in each one. 
I have a hard time trying to fathom how a mother could willingly give her little boy away like this.  And how anyone could treat a fellow human being (a child no less!) in such a despicable way.  Frankly, it makes me very angry.  It's just not right!  Where is the justice?  How is this legal and accepted?!

I know a few people that have ministries to care for garibout boys.  One friend brings boys needing medical care to the hospital and sees to it that they are cared for, even if they need surgery.  Another friend works with an organization that runs a center for the boys.  I got to go with her last week to see what it was like. 

We arrived around 6:30 and shared a breakfast of bread and beans with the boys.  You can see I'm dipping my bread in the same bowl with the boys.  Are you ready to eat out of the same communal bowl with street beggars?
The center gives the boys bread for breakfast each morning, but my friend bought the beans for them and this is a special treat that they really appreciate as it helps their bellies feel full longer.

I can't tell what ethnicity most Malians are just by looking at them.  But Fulani people can sometimes be easier to identify.  This beautiful Fulani boy's name is Ali.  What a horrible crime that innocent Ali has been sentenced to spend his youth begging to survive.  He should be going to school and playing with little siblings and getting hugs from his mom.  When he finishes his time in the garibout system, what kind of life will he be prepared for?  Either for treating other boys the way he was treated, or for a life on the street as a mobile salesman, or for a life of crime I imagine.

There are thousands and thousands of boys like this here in Mali.  Pray with me for the end to this system of slavery.



squalor and luxury

My neighborhood contains some dramatically contrasting views.  I take my dog out to walk or run most days, so I've had a good chance to observe the disparity everywhere around where I live.  In the top picture you can see a ramshackle "house" (left) an inadequate "bathroom" (middle) and at right is a tipped up donkey cart.  This isn't a typical residence here, it seems to be a squatter house.  Well, if you can call it a house.  It looks to be  built with scraps of old materials, and the roof is covered in plastic that is held down by rocks to keep the rain out.  This place is a on a small strip of land between 2 roads. 
Just across the street and about 2 houses down you can see the big white house (palace? mansion?) in the  2nd picture.  They are well equipped with air conditioning and a generator that kicks in whenever the power cuts.  The white house people and the shack people are neighbors, isn't that crazy?

A few streets over I took a picture of a a disgusting gutter.  They are often like this- open and filled with rotting trash.  Sometimes rats can be found running across the sludge and disappearing into a pipe or hole in the concrete.  My dog once jumped into a gutter to chase a rat and I had to shampoo him twice to get the stinky black stuff off of him, so gross.  Since then I don't let him off leash near gutters.  Once in a while I will step out into the street and wonder why it smells like an outhouse.  I have to remind myself that its because of the open sewers all over the neighborhood.  Without these gutters we would have flooded roads whenever it rains.  I know this because there are neighborhoods I've been to that don't have gutters and the roads turn into giant puddles and lots of mud.  So the gutters are much preferable to that scenario.
In the bottom picture you can see the garden of  a rich person.  It is in front of the wall and gate to their house, I imagine they probably have nice gardens in their yard as well.  They have full time guards watching their house and watering the plants a few times a day.  Whenever I walk past here I slow down to try to take in this patch of beauty.  I would really like to step in and lay down in the shade on the nice grass for awhile, but I don't think the guard would be cool with that.

kicking and screaming

There wasn't actually any screaming, but I kind of felt like I wanted to scream.  I have just experienced frustration of a sort that I feel a need to write about it to let it all out.
It is the morning.  First I got myself all dressed up in a nice outfit - that is, an ankle length wrap skirt and a matching top sewn from brightly colored and not at all stretchy African cloth.  Then I spent time putting on makeup and doing my hair in the hopes of looking nice for my meeting.  After packing my purse with the long strap that can be worn across the body, I grabbed the key to our motorcycle and locked the door of the house.  This is when the trouble started.  Our motorcycle has a nice little start button (not what you see pictured, I just pulled that off the internet) but it hasn't been working for a while.  So it needs to be kick-started.  However, that is certainly easier said than done while wearing an ankle length non-stretchy skirt and a pair of plastic flip flops, even under normal circumstances.  The motorcycle hasn't been used a lot since JP is out of town, but even if I am not going to ride it I make sure to start it and let the motor run a bit every few days. The last time it was started up, a few days ago, a friend was over so he started it for me.  He commented that it was hard to start and the battery seemed weak.  He did manage to start it though.  So this morning I hiked up my long skirt and tried my very hardest at kick-starting the motorcycle.  Over and over again.  I gave it all my effort.  I think I may have discovered a new exercise routine!  Attempting to kick-start the motorcycle was actually very physically demanding.  And the temperature, even at 10am, was at least 80 degrees, and right now the humidity level is also at least 80%.  So after many minutes of failed attempts I had sweat streaming down everywhere, including my face, making the nice fresh makeup look I had applied only a memory.  The meeting is only a 20 minute walk away, but by this point if I walked I would have been about 30 minutes late.  And I would have gotten there dripping with sweat.  Yuck.  And I was really too frustrated to be able to calmly sit for a few hours in the meeting.  So I went back in the house and took a shower.  I think that the motorcycle just needs a new battery.  I hope that is all it needs.  What I need is to wear a stretchy t-shirt and a pair of shorts while I stay in the house and read a bit, and then maybe I'll even make a cup of tea.  Yes, that sounds calm and soothing. 

big rain and my post office tour

We aren't out of the rainy season yet.  It isn't raining every day now though, so there will be a few very sweaty humid days between rains.  This morning it RAINED.  Here is a picture I stole off my friend's fb page from when they went out to drive somewhere this morning in the big rain.  Usually you can see a paved road where all that brown muddy water is.  On the right side there is a gutter, but it has overflowed. A lot. 
We stay home when it rains if at all possible.  To get a taxi I have to do a 5 minute walk out to a main road, and before today I didn't even have an umbrella.  Besides, its pretty hard to find a taxi when its raining, so its just not a good plan to go out.  Sometimes there will be light rain for a while, but typically when it rains, it really comes down hard.  And you can see in the picture what a lot of roads here look like when that happens.  So its just better to wait out the rain like most Malians do. 
Well, the rain stopped this morning by 11 and it was still clear at 3pm when I decided to go downtown to the post office to get the package that my mom sent to me.  She sent it 2 weeks ago and I figured it must be here by now because previous packages she sent to us here in Bamako had arrived in 8-10 days. (there are dates stamped on them when they arrive at the post office)  When we lived in the small town the postman knew my name and he would give me a phone call if a package came for me.  That's pretty good service - not as good as home delivery like in the states, but I was quite happy with that system.  Here in Bamako they put a notice in your post office box when a package arrives.  The problem with that is that the post office box is for my group and I might not get the notice for quite some time.  Someone from the group (not me) checks the box periodically.  If there was a notice they would bring it back to the base with them and give it to me the next time they saw me I suppose.  I knew when my mom sent the package and I thought it must be here already.  Plus, there are some things in it for my English classes that start on Monday. 
So I got dressed in a nice Malian outfit and walked the 5 minutes to get a taxi.  The rain started up just after I got in the taxi and we started heading downtown.  The rain continued until I was in the 2nd taxi to head back home again. No joke.  The whole time I was downtown it was pouring rain. 
I got dropped off across from the Central Post Office.  It was my first time there.  I ran across the street and up the steps and I was basically soaking wet just from the few seconds it took to do that.  Inside the post office there was some random man who asked me a lot of questions and then told me to follow him to the package place.  I ran behind him, jumping over puddles and getting even more wet, to another building.  In that building a woman looked in a register book to see if she could find my name/my package listed.  This is the Central Post Office in the capital city of a country with 16 million people, and the woman is looking at a hand written ledger to try to track my package.  I guess there are bigger problems here that need to be tackled before getting a computerized postal system, but still...  The woman said that my package hadn't arrived yet.  The random man (who was waiting there with me) told me to follow him to another building.  I had no reason not to, so I ran through the rain again with him.  He asked where my umbrella was and I said I didn't have one, that I needed one.  We entered a door and could see nothing but P.O. boxes.  I've never seen so many P.O. boxes.  Then we went upstairs and there were more.  He found a worker behind a little window and I talked to him.  His name was Augustine and he was really nice.  He told me he was Catholic.  I don't know if that was to explain where his name came from or if he is just really proud to be Catholic or what.  He looked in our box to see if the package notice was there, but it wasn't.  He gave me his phone number and took mine and said that he would call me when my package came.  Isn't that nice?  The random man told me we could go check somewhere else, but I figured it was pretty sure that my package has really not arrived yet, and I didn't really want to keep running around in the rain.   Back on the first floor of the P.O. box building, random man found some guys sitting around seemingly doing nothing.  I guess they were waiting for the rain to stop, but I bet they do a lot of sitting there seemingly doing nothing even when it isn't raining.  One of them was wearing a uniform and the others were in regular clothes.  Random man started telling me about how he has some lovely umbrellas to sell to me for a good price, then he stepped out in to the rain to go find them.  I was left with the doing nothing guys and I waited there and wondered why random man didn't think to try to sell me an umbrella before we did all of that running around in the rain.  Random man came back with a small selection of umbrellas and quoted me some ridiculous prices.  I told him I simply didn't have much money with me today so I couldn't buy an umbrella.  There was then, of course, a whole lot of discussion and negotiation interspersed with some joking between me and my new "friend" random man.  I kind of felt obliged to buy an umbrella from him after he had given me such a nice tour (though in the rain) of all of the post office buildings.  Beyond my feelings though was the fact that I could really use an umbrella!  I finally bought one for about 40% of his original asking price, and I probably still overpaid a bit. 
By this point it was only drizzling, so I didn't even open my new umbrella as I went outside and found a taxi to take home.  (I did open it to test it before buying it though, I didn't get here yesterday after all.)  Once I was in the taxi to come home the rain stopped.  But I got to see all the puddles, or rather small lakes and rivers, that were now the road.
I could be upset that I made a trip across town and back and didn't achieve my purpose of collecting my package.  But honestly, it was kind of a good time.  I have been doing too much work with my books and papers and computer in the last few days, so it was a nice break for me to get out and have some interaction with some interesting characters.  My mind needed a chance to think about other things for awhile.  Things very often don't go as I plan or as I wish, that's just life, and maybe especially life in Mali.  If I can accept it with a smile and find something good in the situation, I think I'm coming out ahead.  After all - I got myself a nice new umbrella today!

three years

We just celebrated 3 years of marriage!

Since JP is away doing his school internship now, I made the long bus trip to go visit him for a few days.  I hadn't been there since Easter, so it was nice to see a lot of our friends and colleagues again too.  One friend let us stay at her house for my visit, and that was so nice.  Jean-Patrick is living at the mission base and it is kind of like dorm life, so I was thankful to stay in a house with all its amenities. 
If you've read this blog for a while you might remember that we've had some challenges trying to celebrate our anniversary well the past 2 times.  I hadn't wanted to do difficult travel again this year, but it was unavoidable.  To read about what last year was like, or just to get a good description of what a bus trip is like here, check out this post:  a nice relaxing weekend away   
This year I spent around 11 hours traveling each direction!  Exhausting!



Here is a picture of what can be seen from a bus window when the bus makes a stop at a small station.  You can see a couple trays of yellow apples (imported) and a lady with bananas on her head, bottled beverages (sometimes real Coke and Sprite, sometimes reused bottles filled with juice), there is a man with a cart trying to sell random plastic goods, and in the middle there is a woman who has a tray of meat, fried potatoes, and bread and she is ready to put it together to make a quick sandwich.  Its always a crowd of people waiting there.  Usually there are a couple of beggars too.

On this trip there was a guy at one stop who asked me where I was from - I was the only white person to be seen, so I guess he did see me!  I said America, and he said he was from America too.  Clearly he was not, but this is typical of the friendly Malian joking that I enjoy with strangers on a daily basis.

I got to spend 4 days visiting JP.  On our actual anniversary day (September 3) we enjoyed a dinner out.  We borrowed a friend's motorcycle and went to a roadside shop.  In the evenings they serve roasted lamb and rotisserie chicken with all the fixings.  You can choose to fill your plate with fried potatoes, fried plantains, beans, onions, tomatoes, and hot peppers.  Then you sit outside at a plastic table and enjoy the food.  It wasn't fancy but we enjoyed it!
JP will still be gone for quite a few more weeks and I've come back, still home alone.  I'm keeping pretty busy though, so I think the next 3 weeks will pass quickly and then JP will come home to visit for a long weekend.