photo update

We have struggled to get photos up on blogspot due to internet issues but friends from our last trip (text below) have posted a bunch of pics on

 http://soulshinefamily.smugmug.com/Trips-and-Travel/Teriya-Bugu-Trip/19640767_GQ8FBv#1540066520_WNZFbbF

Check 'em out!

Four Cleary Perspectives on Fall Break

Kailou:

Ggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Ahhhhhh, fall break, unlike at the charter school we get a nine day break at my new school. It is luxurious and needed but for some reason I am still here at my desk being forced to write “five sentences” for the blog, but once am done I will be free. My dad is the mastermind behind this blog plot, my mom flew to Nairobi for a teacher conference, but after this, freedom!!!!!!! I can’t wait for tomorrow because tomorrow is movie night at the American club. The movie is never great but it’s fun to hang out with all my American friend and drink a soda while talking about good old America.

Jade:
Dear friends and family,

            Today my family and I have just returned from a trip with another family. We all had a lot of fun visiting a small pottery village and walking amongst the children of a little fishing town. But of course there was a poison dart in the raisin tart and this time it was bugs. The bugs were the worst on the first night we got there and we didn’t know to apply bug spray constantly. Surprisingly though all the other nights where practically bug free, or at least of pesky mosquitoes! By the way, Tireya Bugu, the encampment we stayed at, was built right next to the Banie River so we took a small pirogue. I got to sit in the very front which made me feel free and powerful as the wind whipped my and the sun sank lower in the sky.

5949, 5959, 5969, 5973

Cindy:

We have been in Mali for nine weeks and today we are out in the countryside for our first true vacation. It feels like we’ve been here much longer while at the same time still feeling so fresh and new.  It’s a good time to reflect on what we’ve learned and accomplished so far and what we still wish to create for ourselves in our new African home and lifestyle.

We have a full week off of school, Fall Break, which was much needed by all of us.  It’s been exhausting to figure out all of our new routines and to set up our home, office, classrooms and activities. Being in the city most of the time is a sensory overload and even though we escaped to nearby Siby for a couple of climbing/hiking days, getting out even further and for four full days is a rejuvenation deep in our bones. 

On Sunday we drove 6 hours away from Bamako to an encampment in the heart of Mali, just beyond the old city of Segou.  Segou is a riverside market town that was the capital of the old Malian Kingdom as well as home to the French colonial leadership.  We stopped to shop at a huge pottery market by the Niger River and eat lunch at a little street café that is recommended by the local Peace Corps volunteers. Several of them were there to chat with us and tell us about life in the villages – reminding us of the luxuries we enjoy with our air-conditioned house, car, running water, ample restaurant and fancy grocery stores.

Teriya Bugu, meaning “Hut of Friendship” in Bambara, is the encampment we are staying in, nestled alongside the Bani River in the midst of a forest of eucalyptus trees, mango groves and banana plantations. It’s 28 kilometers from the nearest paved road and located between fishing and pottery villages. It’s an eco-tourism site, founded by a French Priest who set up the massive gardens, tree plantations, solar farm and health initiatives in a group of villages. We are staying in cozy huts along the riverside with a swimming pool and slide, ping-pong table, roaming peacocks, restaurant, and a mini-zoo. The income from our stay supports the sustainable development of the surrounding villages. This afternoon we’ll go on a boat ride to tour a nearby fishing village and tomorrow we’ll visit a pottery making village to try our hand at traditional pot making.

Thomas:

            What an amazing first big trip away from Bamako! The city life, even in our ‘outskirts of town’ suburb, is busy, noisy, and impersonal. Visiting the villages near Teriya Bugu, an hour east of Segou, was such a surprise. Kids running up to have their picture taken so they can see themselves on the LCD screen, people wanting to talk to me and shake my hand in friendly greeting, toothless old ladies laughing at us and with us, men showing us their work at blacksmith anvils or handcrank sewing machines, and more.

            Our school, www.aisbmali.org, has a fall break in late October. This is a wonderful timing as it allowed us to catch our breath after 2 months at the new school. Africa or not, teaching is a demanding job and getting my classroom up and running, with all new curriculum, took a lot out of me. Now I am fairly settled into a planning routine and this week off gave me a chance to reflect and take stock. So far so good! My students and I are all (mostly) happy with our classroom life.

            So on the first Sunday of break we loaded up our new car with its new roof rack, picked up another family to journey with us, and headed east for a 4.5 hour trip ~ according to the guidebook. Of course the writer of said guidebook did not have 4 adults, 4 kids, several ‘quick stops’ on the way out of town, and messages to be passed on to families of house help in far flung villages. Nor did he apparently have an inexperienced driver of a big, new (to us) SUV vying for limited road space against even bigger semis, whilst dodging deep potholes, slow domestic animals, and fast kids on road’s edge! Ten hours later we rolled into our ‘encampment’!

            But the next 2 days were restful in the calm of the eucalyptus trees planted along the banks of the Bani River surrounding our bungalow. We swam in the clean, cool pool with its steep slide and visited its grounds with forests and small animal park. We took a pirogue (boat) to a nearby fishing village and were welcomed by the village chief and hoards of happy kids, returning home on the river at sunset. We toured another village spending 2 hours with a family of master potters, even making our own pots. And we walked through a market very different than those in Bamako in that there was more of the locally produced goods and foodstuff and less of the Chinese, plasticated fodder.

            On the ride home we stopped at a mudcloth cooperative and watched artisans at work and even made our own swatches. The fabrics were beautiful and made with all natural dyes of amazing blues, greens, reds, and yellows. And, even with that stop, we made it home in 8 hours!

            Now I have had a few days at home for the last half of break while Cindy was off to a conference in Kenya. I was busy unpacking our shipment which arrived, right before break, after 3.5 months. It is great to have more clothes after 2 full months in 4 sets of clothes (and I was down to 3 holey undies and 2 pr of socks!). We have also really been wanting our bikes as we are too close to school to drive but too far to walk. Other exciting things: toys and games for the kids, climbing gear, wall art, music players, printer with scanner (will help with lesson planning), kitchen appliances, tv/dvd for kids, and classroom resources. So now back to school for a month before more travel at Thanksgiving break and another month til a big trip at Winter break!

           

Around town and in the village of Siby

Mango trees in Siby

Our "door man" at the encampment 

Buying a couple of yard tools

Nice when someone speaks some English...

Sunday at Hotel Rabelais

This was Sunday a full week ago - the day we got our new car!  Car, climbing, and yoga photos will be up next.  

But that first day, after climbing and yoga in the park, we took our gutsy Toyota Prado on a spin to Hotel Rabelais for lunch and a swim. 

 If you eat lunch, you swim for free, but being a fancy French restaurant that wasn't cheap!  

Kailou ordered the special - pigeon! Not very appetizing to me but he thought it was an adventure and so did Jade.

My veggie buckwheat crepe was plenty exotic for me.

Thomas had an African dish with chicken and a side called "atieke" - fermented manioc - which I love and had our cook make since then.








Jade had an uneventful burger and fries but tasted the pigeon....










Swimming was lovely with cool clear water to wash off the desert heat and sand...  It's still rainy season so the heat will be turned up slowly for us, nothing serious yet... but the swim was still luxurious and lush...

A little circus yoga in the pool....

Dogon country motif ...  where they live in the cliffs.  We'll have photos of the real thing after driving there for Christmas... the new car is going to take us all over the country!

O JOY SCHOOL AGAIN

(Editors note: This was written last week.... just getting it posted!)

I just barely made it through my first day and something tells me there’s more to come and just because I’m in Africa it is no different - work work work classroom to classroom back and forth up and down trip fall ouch run run run eat run run and all over again.

             Powers out, bored, low on fuel, brain falling out of my ears from all the new unneeded knowledge, raining clouds covering the sun (which is hard to believe is possible (it’s so darn hot)) sick of French, want a normal b.l.t.(goat burgers don’t count). I can’t believe I complained about being bored all summer and now school started and am overwhelmed with all the things my parents are nagging me to do.

Now Jade’s complaining about how hungry she is but when my mom offers her a piece of fruit she yells at my mom that she doesn’t want an orange. It’s strange how things work in Africa but the only way of explaining it that really sounds right is: the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

                                                                                                      Signed: Kailou

p.s. moooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our New Home!

It is incredible that we’ve only been here in Mali for 9 days!  Our life in Crestone feels so far away as we walk the muddy streets past fields of corn and lettuce.  It’s rainy season and we live just a couple hundred feet from the Niger River so the streets and fields are full of puddles and ponds that could float a canoe.  Frogs croak while yellow, red and orange birds perch on green branches as we stomp by in our newly purchased black rubber boots. 

This is how we get to school every morning – wading through puddles, dodging the mud and the deepest channels.  This morning it was raining hard so we called for a school van to pick Jade and I up.  Thomas walked early and Kailou came later, with jeans wet to his knees.  Kids don’t start school until Tuesday, so they’ve been staying home to read, do math worksheets, play on the computer and eat lunch prepared by Fatime, our cook.  Today they wanted to come to get new books from the library and try to help out in classroom prep.  Thomas and I have been in lots of teacher trainings and meetings but today was mostly time for getting classrooms and curriculum ready.

Last weekend the Director took the new staff and a few veterans out for a Sunday evening boat ride on the Niger.  It was a beautiful way to see the city!  The boat was a long wooden pirogue with bench seats, a grass roof and a motor in the back.  We passed by women washing clothes, men feeding animals or building houses, children playing…  all a colorful parade of village and city life.  There are also many elegant villas along the river – homes to embassy staff and other elites.

My favorite activity so far was African dance class after work on Wednesday.  Two of the teachers are very committed to dance and have their Malian male teacher and a group of drummers come to the school for class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We danced outside on a school patio overlooking the lush, green grounds and the Niger River. The drummers, with Thomas as apprentice, had perfect beat playing perfectly timed traditional songs. Our dance teacher, Lassi, is a very tall, exquisitely fit Malian man with high cheek bones and short dreadlocks. He led us in a series of traditional dances that the group had already learned then started to teach us a new one.  

I kept up with the simpler steps but got lost on the complex ones. I worked up a sweat and had a constant smile on my face – with the rich beat, the lush river, the beautiful moves and gorgeous teacher, I fell like crying from the preciousness of it.

But that ecstasy has been balanced with an upset stomach today and the slow pace of settling in at home.  Along with the schoolwork, setting up house feels overwhelming. We have a huge house – four bedrooms and four bathrooms! It’s made of cement blocks that are plastered over with an adobe-colored finish on the outside and white-washed walls on the inside.  

We have a small courtyard surrounding the whole house – it’s tiled and has shrubs on the edges and two medium Mango trees on one side. We have round-the-clock guard service, provided by the school, so there is always a uniformed guard with a bright smile that opens the gate for us or let’s us know when a school van is here to pick us up.

Inside we have tall ceilings with fans and air conditioners in every room.  The windows and doors all have a maroon-colored metal trellis outside of the glass windows and doors.  Everything locks and there is a different key for every single door, inside and out, so the keys mostly stay in the locks.  The inside doors are all a deep solid wood with their own deadlock bolts with keys in every door. Much more fancy and secure than we seem to need!  The floors are a cool, mottled white tile.  The house is not tight – doors and windows have gaps and the screens don’t fit very well – so we get some leaking rain as well as geckos, lizards, ants, flies and mosquitoes to keep us company and to taunt the cats.

Bathrooms are where things are a bit different.  The showers don’t have curtains or delineated stalls – so in our main upstairs bath the drain is in the middle of the bathroom and the whole floor fills with water turning the entire bathroom including sink and toilet into the shower stall.  They put a bathtub into the master bathroom which is nice but they had to remove the toilet for it to fit… so that’s a different kind of ¾ bath.                                                                  
                                                                                   Our House:

Jade has her own bedroom with attached bath on the first floor.  Then Kailou has an upstairs bedroom next to the hall bathroom that turns into a shower stall.  We have a large fourth bedroom that has no furniture right now.  That one will become our master bedroom when we get some furniture for it.  Then the current master can become a spare room for guests.  There are also several verandas, including one that is screened in with doors leading from the master bedroom and the hall. That has become my favorite morning yoga spot, but will be nice with some furniture too – if we can get the leaky rood fixed. 

                                                                                         Teaching Fatime to make green smoothies:

The stairway continues all the way to the third story, which is the roof.  It is tiled and has views of the city, river and nearby escarpments.  It would be great with some plants, patio furniture and a cabana, maybe a full-on garden – definitely a down-the-road project.  Right now we have sparse furnishings and nothing for décor in the house itself. Tomorrow we are heading out with a friend to shop in the markets and at an expatriate garage sale.  We hope to get some lamps, desks, bookshelves, and other furniture. Some of our lights are fluorescent and our friend knows a nice shop to get coverings for them.

There are a lot of little things we need that will come in our crate when it gets here.  We thought it arrived before us, but turns out we have no idea where it is or when it will get here.  The school itself has been waiting on four crates since April and they are finally here in town although not at the school yet.  We can’t really count on ours getting here for some time it seems.  It would be nice to know where it is but no one can tell us!  All we can do is wait and of course we’ll get very good at that in Africa!

Besides settling in, we look forward to getting out more - to visit villages, go rock climbing, check out the night life and see more of the city. We have a forest not far from home and when our bikes get here we can bike along the river to get to it. We have a lot of great friends to get to know better too – our colleagues from school include folks from Ireland, England, Germany, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, and of course, Mali and the U.S. They are all very friendly and passionate about their jobs. More on the school and the people later!

Some photos of our boat trip along the broad Niger River and trips around town:

Jade's First Week in Mali

Today my family and I were going to go shopping but then it started raining so we had to go home. But at least we got to buy tofu and greens before we had to run to the nearest pharmacy. And now that it stopped raining we still might get to go buy furniture! And I also want the weather to get better so we can boat down the Niger river today!

                                                                                    Blog entry by Jade

                                                                                 13/8/11 A.K.A 8/13/11

Kailou in Africa?

Well, here we are in Africa. We made it through the 4 planes, even with Jade grumpy and 2 cats mewing in our ears all the way, although I admit it was pretty cool sitting in a cafe in Paris France eating a sprite and drinking a croissant (as you can see I’m still a victim of jetlag). But now that we’re here, I love it. We got our new house, toured our new school, drove around our new city and saw the sites. But there’s always a poison dart hidden in the cherry tart and in this case it’s the people and how they live. Today I learned that every little thing I’ve heard about poverty in Africa is true and let me tell u that not one of the facts has been on how well the people lived. If someone said Malians did live even remotely nicely, they would be absolutely wrong in every way possible. The beggars and street people are everywhere. They are teaming; it’s almost like India all over again but we all play our part and mine is just living here in luxury and I feel bad about it too. Tonight I gotta go on the fancy pirogue ride down the Niger River and after that we’re having a barbeque with the Amer. International Sch. Bamako Director.

                                                                                                                              Signed, Kailou

p.s. I miss b.l.t’s and fries so much but there is good food, just not the same).

p.p.s. I wasn’t kidding about the boat ride!