"Kitten" the kitten

I found a tiny kitten when I was out walking my dog.  It was on a bit of ground between a metal fence and a paved road, far from any houses, and with no mama cat in sight.   The kitten was crawling around and would have certainly been killed by traffic within a few minutes if I had not rescued it.  Nearby was another kitten, already dead.  I couldn't bear to leave the living kitty behind to be killed.  So I picked it up and carried it home where I quickly gave it a bath.  After checking online I figured that the kitten was about 3 weeks old.  I also read that you aren't supposed to wash tiny kittens, but I wasn't going to leave it all filthy, and it survived the bath.

Our big cat wanted nothing to do with the kitten at first.  But Teddy dog loved it.  My silly dog thought that he was the kitten's mama.  He licked it and gently carried it around in his mouth.  (later, when the kitten was older, he wasn't quite so gentle with it, but it learned to be tough)  I thought it might die because it wouldn't eat on its own, I had to feed it milk out of my hand.  Somehow it lived.  We had the kitten for 6 weeks because it took me awhile to find it a new home. 

 

Here is Teddy with the kitten just before it left.

After having already asked a lot of people and not finding someone to take the kitten, I thought I would ask my English students if they wanted it.  In my big class of 24 students, no one was interested.  I was discouraged.  I hadn't thought it would be so hard to get rid of the kitty.  Our pet quota is filled, so we really couldn't keep it.  Besides, we already have a cat, and I'm not even a "cat person."  Then I asked my smaller class of 12 students.  I had 3 of them raise their hands.  All 3 wanted the kitten!  So I left it to them to discuss and decide who the kitten would go to. 

 

So here is one of my students (the one who best convinced his classmates that he needed a kitten I guess) getting ready to take the kitty home.  He said he was going to name it "Kitten."  How do we transport a cat in Mali?  In a bird cage of course.  I really need to find a cat carrier or get some kind of box built before we move again.  Our big cat made the long trip here crammed into this same bird cage!  I sort of missed the kitty the first day after it was gone, but I don't miss dealing with a litter box.  Our big cat goes outside to go to the bathroom, so normally we don't have a litter box.  I am glad that Kitten has a new home, and I hope that she will do a good job of getting rid of all the mice there.

About English School

I've had a few questions about English school, so I thought I'd write a bit more about it.  

The school was started a few years ago by some Americans from a couple of different organizations.  I think that now there are 4 organizations working together with the school, and I really appreciate that.  When it started they were meeting in a building just once a week for class.  Some time ago, not sure when exactly but before I arrived on the scene, they found a villa, a house, to rent to use as a center for classes.  The building is well located about a mile from where I live and not far from the city's university.  Now the classes meet twice a week for 24 lessons, so about 3 months for the semseter.  We are using an English as a Second Language curriculum that has 5 levels.  I am teaching level 1 (beginner) and level 3 (intermediate) this semseter.  My level 1 class has 24 students and level 3 has 12.  I enjoy the level 3 class more because the smaller class size is better, and because the students are able to speak and understand a lot more English. 
The students are all adults, and the classes are in the evenings.  Some students attend the university and some have jobs.  They are all taking English classes by choice and I think that it is nice as a teacher to know that they are there because they want to be, because they want to learn, not because it is some requirement. 
There are several centers in town that offer English classes, but we are the only one with (all) American teachers!  New students come in because they have heard about the school from their friends.  I've had 1 or 2 people stop in each week asking me to add their name to the contact list so they can sign up for the next semester.  To register for class they have to take a placement test and pay 20,000 cfa tuition, which comes to about $40.  So no, I am not getting paid to teach.  (actually I've had to spend some money on photocopies!)  The hope is that the tuition will cover the printing of the books and pay for the rent and utilities on the building.  The founders have been helping to cover the costs up until now, but there are enough students that it is becoming self-supporting.
Besides the twice a week classes, the center offers a Cafe night where students come to play games and converse in English.  There is a different topic each month, for example February was Black History Month and they watched and listened to MLK's "I have a dream" speech. 
I do enjoy teaching and me talks ok in English, so there is something valuable that they can learn from me.

hot, hot, hot

These are the days when you can sit completely still in the shade and still have sweat dripping off you.  Yes, it’s Hot Season again!  Daily highs have been between 102 and 107 for a few weeks already, and we can’t expect relief until rainy season starts in June.  Along with the heat have come daily power cuts.  It seems that the electric company can’t keep up with demand to power fans and air conditioners.  The power has been out for 5 to 10 hours every day.  We only open the fridge when absolutely necessary during the power cuts!  Even though the overnight lows are in the 70’s, it doesn’t get below 90 in our house.  Cement block buildings absorb heat during the day and keep things toasty all night.  I think I might get my hair done in braids again soon because I’m tired of a sweaty neck and soggy pillow.

With these inconveniences, (not to mention a war taking place in the north of the country,) one might ask why I’d want to live in Mali.   And though I wouldn’t mind a quick trip to the beach, there is nowhere I’d rather be right now.  I know that I’m where I’m meant to be. 
And honestly, I prefer a sweaty 105 degrees in Mali over a Minnesota winter’s -40 degrees that comes with scraping ice off windshields with numb fingers, frozen eyelashes and nose hairs, and cold that hurts down to the bones.

Even the Malians start to complain when it’s this hot.  One of the Bambara phrases that I know well is “it’s really hot!” 

visiting the refugees

 

I recently got to go with friends to visit some refugees here in Bamako.  These are people who fled from the North of Mali almost a year ago because of the Rebel, Islamist, and al-Qaeda groups taking over up there.  The people I met had all come from the big towns of Timbuktu and Gao.  While it may have been a good plan for anyone and everyone to flee the north with these groups moving in, it was especially urgent for the Christians to leave.  I have read that something like 1/2 millon people left the North and are living displaced in neighboring countries or elsewhere here in Mali.  I was happy to meet and talk with just a few of them.  We visited the Baptist Mission and the Catholic place where families from the North have been living since last April.


These first pictures show the guy in the hat sorting donations of rice, oil, soap, and bleach to be distributed among the refugees.  He and his wife (in the red print) shared their story.  They were students at the Bible school in Gao.  The bad guys came into town and into their house.  They pointed a gun at them and took the wife's wedding ring.  They were able to leave with their 4 children in only the clothes they were wearing.  Since the director of the Bible school also fled and is living in the mission compound with them, they are able to continue their studies here. 

 

 

This is my videographer friend who filmed the interviews with her fancy-schmancy camera.  My job was to hold the microphone on its long stick thing, keeping it out of the shot but close enough to hear what the people were saying well. 

Isn't great that a baby bathing tub can be used for more than bathing a baby?  It is also handy for letting baby take a nap in.  I've also seen people using them to wash clothes in.

 

    I got pictures of the boys playing soccer at the Catholic center.  The big boys are kicking around a tennis ball, and the little ones have a spongy nerf ball.  I wish I had real soccer balls to give them.  And that one little guy could probably use some pants, too. :)

 A lot of the women were working on crocheting projects to generate income.  They have also done soap making and decorative sandal beading.

A boy pumping a well to collect water for watering gardens. 

English school

Here are a couple photos from English school!

 

I am really glad for this opportunity I have to teach English.  I teach 2 nights a week; first a Level 1 class for 2 hours, then a Level 3 class for 2 hours.  The semester is for 12 weeks, or 24 lessons. 
Can you see the students wearing their nametags in the second picture?  I made them nametags because I figured I would never learn all their names otherwise.

Prison Visit

Recently I was allowed to tag along to prison with a lovely friend here who does prison visits.  For years she has been visiting the prisons in and around Bamako weekly.  She goes to both the women’s prison and the men’s prisons, but I asked if I could see the women’s prison because that sounded a little less scary.
 I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly, but I expected that it wouldn’t be nice.  I had images from movies in mind – tiny cement cells with puddles of fetid water, each with a single starving prisoner chained in the shadows to ancient rusting shackles, or a bigger space packed shoulder-to-shoulder with disturbed looking characters that you wouldn’t want to turn your back to for a second for fear of being shanked.
Well, the women’s prison was nothing like either of those scenarios (thank God!)
It was more like a really really awful summer camp that you would never want to be sent to.

I took this picture of the gate, but there are no cameras allowed inside now,  so the rest of the photos are ones my friend took a few years ago.

We drove up to the gate that has a big sign above it and is surrounded by high stone walls that go far in either direction.  My friend is a familiar face there, so they let her in without question and since I was with her I followed her in.  I thought I’d have to show ID or have my purse searched or hear the rules explained or something.  But I just walked right in and at the end I walked back out just as easily. 
The first thing I thought was that it was really big.  There are a number of buildings and a lot of big open space.  On the edges there are vegetable gardens.  And secondly I noticed some small children playing and I was surprised by that.  I hadn’t realized that there would be kids in the women’s prison.  They can stay with their mamas until they turn 4.   I was told that there are generally between 100-150 women in the prison, and 20 or so children. 
We went to the buildings surrounding a central courtyard that had groups of women sitting and chatting and crocheting doilies or braiding hair.  The women were wearing normal clothes (except for one topless woman I saw) and just seemed to be hanging out.  It is obviously a very minimum-security setting.  There were dozens of plastic buckets strewn about.  I learned that each woman has her own bucket for washing (herself and her clothes presumably) and that they each know which one is theirs.  The buildings have rooms with 4 to maybe 10 beds in each room.  Some of the bigger rooms might also have a pile of foam mattresses so those who don’t have a bed can find a place to put a mattress on the floor at night.  The smaller rooms with only 4 beds are for women with babies. 
We went around and greeted everyone and my friend gave out cookies that she had brought to the little kids.  The women who were interested in attending the study started gathering in a meeting room with benches.  We went around to every room and found a few women sick in bed.  One of them was from an Asian country and spoke English, and I was able to talk to her in English.  It would be awful to be in prison in a foreign country and not able to speak the language, and then on top of that to be sick in bed.  We headed over to the meeting room and saw that about 15 women were there waiting.  My friend led the women in lively songs to start the meeting and then there was a teaching.  Because some of the prisoners are not from Mali, there is the need to translate the teaching into a few different languages.  My friend’s colleague taught in Bambara, she translated to English, and I listened to her in English and translated into French.  

After the women receiving a gift of soap, one of the English speakers came up to me.  In tears she told me a bit of her situation and asked me to remember to pray for her.  She had already been there 3 months and was still waiting for a court date.  I think that the worst part of being in prison for many of the women is just waiting for who knows how long to find out what will happen.  I asked what kinds of crimes the women were there for since the security is so minimal.  I saw one woman in a police type uniform and two men in plain clothes in an office watching tv.  Some of the young girls in there, maybe only 14 and 15 years old, had been house workers for families with money and the families reported them and had them thrown in jail after some money or an expensive cell phone went missing.  Some women are in prison on drug or prostitution charges.  But I was told that there are a few that are there for killing their husbands.  So a pretty mixed crowd!

I found the prison visit experience to be very interesting and I’m glad that I could go and see what it’s like there and see what prison visiting looks like.  It is really the sort of work that puts our beliefs into actions, and I so appreciate the dedication of my friend who let me tag along with her. 

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.