MALI MALI!!!

Deux Semaine Au  Mali Mali

I Ni Su – Good Evening in Bambara

Week two in Mali has been filled with funny stories from volunteers falling in the sewers to going to getting lost on Sutrama.

Team YMCM have finally started work at our two operational organisations UMAV and Amaldene, and they have both been incredibly humbling experiences.  Also cohort 2 has finally arrived in Mali and Fran has been showing her team around Bamako. At UMAV we have been given the go ahead to build a sensory playground and garden for their students who are either blind or partially sighted. The sensory playground and garden is to give the children at UMAV a safe environment to play that will also help to them explore the surrounding using their others senses. We are all really excited about these two projects and are currently in the planning section for both projects. Today, I and Bridie went to record cohort 2 teaching children English at UMAV. They seemed really into the lessons and so did the other children. They exchanged questions about the differences in England and Mali. For example the weather, the population in England which is apparently around 70 million and 6 million in Mali, even though Mali is absolutely massive compared to Britain.

At Amaldene, me and a few of the other volunteers went to observe different departments i.e. Occupational Therapy, Specialist Therapy and psychology. The teachers are all so dedicated to their jobs and patient which makes it such a pleasure to watch them work with the children. They showed us how they assess children and diagnose each child; and how they help the children. You see really the progress of children in their one to one time with the specialist teachers. For example there was a little boy who was 8 months old that came in and at the beginning of the session he could not sit up at all even with support as it pained him too much. However towards the end of the session he was crying less and even sitting up with support. Unfortunately even though the school is open, they have no electricity as they are behind on their electricity bill.

On the social side of things we have certainly been immersing ourselves in Malian culture. Dicko our security guard has told us how we are his favourite group so far, to show us this he has been plying us with Attai (a traditional tea) around three times a day. Team YMCM went on the hunt for pineapples and mangos and thus went to the market well tried to go to the market. We thought it would be a good idea to go via sutrama. Sutramas are the main form of public transport in Bamako, they are usually green ran down minibus with a wooden benches. They are supposed to have a maximum capacity of 30 however after around 18 people were pretty much sitting on top of each other. It was pretty uncomfortable but funny at the same time as everyone on the sutrama found us hilarious, and couldn’t stop laughing when we attempted to speak the little Bambara that we knew.  After our first sutrama ride, one of the conductors guided us through Le Grande Marche and got us on the second sutrama that would supposedly take us to the market. However when we got of the sutrama, the fruit and vegetables was nowhere to be seen. We walked around for about an hour and then finally gave up. The ironic bit was that on our way back by taxi we went past the fruit and veg market which was only about 5 MINUTES walk from where we were.

Additionally our pizza experience on Saturday evening gave a whole new meaning to Africa time. Even though we had prearranged with the local pizza guy that we would be coming at 6 in the evening for pizza. We arrived at 7 and so did he! It took him forever to heat up the oven and could only make one pizza at a time. It took about an hour for each pizza to be prepared served to us ( and we had 5 pizzas), however the pizzas were delicious when they came out. Definitely one if the best meals since we arrived in Mali (bar the Sharwamas down the road that are amazing).  He informed us that it was the first time that he had ever made pizza in his life, which was also pretty impressive.

As mentioned before a volunteer (Jemma) fell into the sewer which was full of gunk that smelt unbelievably bad. She was walking back to the apartment in the dark and texting when she fell waist deep into the sewer. She came running back to the office screaming that she had a terrible accident, we all came running down. We quickly got her in the shower as she had loads of little insects on her thankfully there were no leaches and she is alright. However she did provide us with a lot of entertainment that evening, as you could imagine.

On Sunday we went to our first Malian wedding, which was amazing even though we were the source of entertainment yet again. We all wore traditional clothes that were made for us from the materials that we bought from the market. At the wedding the singer came up to JJ and sang a song for him in which she included his name. Furthermore there was traditional dancing, we all got dragged on the dance floor to dance; Jemma and Lorriane from the other group were particularly good. You can see the pictures on facebook if you interested in seeing what we wore.

Hope you enjoyed reading the blog. Also please donate to this justgiving page, all proceeds will go straight to our projects here in Mali: http://www.justgiving.com/littlemissmali