Final CWY Update

Sorry for the delay everyone. I wasn't able to stay in contact at all in Mali. My village had no electricity, and the few times that I was in Bamako, the capital, the only Internet access available was through an Internet café. We were only allowed to travel in-group for safety reasons, and because of that, my time got divided heavily with the other Canadians. Between that and the bad connection, as well as the unfamiliar keyboard, I didn't have nearly enough time to provide any kind of update. When you all got that tiny message when I first arrived in Mali, saying that I survived the trip, that was likely my best opportunity in that rotation.


But even in La Pocatiere, when I was speaking regularly, what I said was bland and empty. I had a lot of pressure to update by various people, and when I didn't, others would do it for me. In reality, I was not having a good time, and didn't feel like it was appropriate to share the reason. I updated only to control what information was published. Because of this, none of you ever got a real insight into what my Canada World Youth experience was like.


But now the program is over, and what I say here can no longer effect my experience. Let this message tell the full story, and with that, bring the program to it's close.


In La Pocatiere, I had two major challenges. One was language, and the other was family. I know that family issues are usually two things: one, very real and painful for those involved, and two, boring and tedious for those listening. So even though I'm speaking openly now, I'll still try to make this brief. If you want to know more, email me and I'll talk to you about it


My host mother complained to my Project Leader that I wasn't putting in enough effort to speak French. This wasn't true, my Project Leader said she was satisfied with my efforts and rate of improvement inside the group, and I made many efforts inside the family. But for some reason, my PL decided to bring me to the halfway point of being expelled from the program, and she started doing weekly follow-ups.



My host mother would also go through my and my counterpart's luggage, thoroughly, every day. She'd inventory and analyze what we had, and report it to my Project Leader, during the weekly follow-ups. She and my host father would also report it if we broke any house rules, which would be understandable, but they had millions of them, they never communicated them to us, and they were pointless and impossible to predict. And I kept getting failure reports for my efforts in French.


My host father wasn't so immediately offensive, but he completely ignored me. He was always taking pictures of my counterpart, and taking him on trips that I was never invited to.


Eventually we did move to another family, and that worked out fine, but it only happened three weeks to the end of the rotation, and we were still working with our first family during the day. Honestly, the whole situation was a lot more ridiculous than I can describe in these three short paragraphs, but I'm ending it here.


I left Quebec with the feeling that I had failed that rotation.


I would not leave Mali feeling this way. I want to take the time to say that Quebec-Mali is considered THE most difficult CWY exchange. For most people, including those in my group, this is because of Mali. But for me, it was by far the easier rotation. I don't know if any of you remember my first post to the logbook (I did another one, too, a preparation letter for the next group http://logbook.cwy-jcm.com/maliquebec1/2012/01/01/karadje-info/ ), but it was about my struggles in learning French, and about my experience with culture shock. In Mali, I experienced no shock, and, while I was the weakest in my group at speaking French, I would become the strongest at speaking Bambara.


In fact, you could argue that I adapted TOO well to Malian culture. My nicknames were Ali Bilébiléba (pronounced "Billabillaba", Bambara for Ali The Giant) and Samah (Bambara for Elephant). I had a Malian godson, and a Malian girlfriend.


But even if I was the best at adapting to the Malian culture, I was probably the worst at adapting to the food and climate. I got sunstroke a handful of times, food poisoning, an ear infection that, for a while, I thought may have caused permanent damage, and I lost thirty pounds on a malnourished diet.


Didn't get Malaria, though, and it turns out that, even if you're taking medication and taking precautions not to get bit by mosquitoes, there is still a very real chance of getting it. Two Canadians in our group got it, and three in the other.


Disease wasn't the only thing that set Mali apart from the other exchanges in terms of risk. Like I've said, Quebec-Mali is the most difficult exchange, and it's young, with only two sets of groups before us. Because of that, I feel like they hadn't ironed out all the kinks in terms of safety, and I'm not sure I would recommend the program, although I'm happy to have done it.


Before leaving Canada, we were told that the three deadliest creatures in the area were scorpions, snakes and wild dogs. After hearing this, I grew to hope that I would see each during my stay. I wasn't disappointed. I even had the opportunity to have a couple close calls with scorpions.


Heat was a big issue for the Canadians, too. Like I said, I got pretty familiar with heat stroke. The program is designed so that the Malians are in Canada at the hottest time of the year, and the Canadians are in Mali for the coldest (as you may have read in my logbook post). In this way, nobody is taken too far out of their comfort zone. Difference is, the Malians start at the hottest point of the Canadian rotation, and get weaned into the colder temperatures, whereas the Canadians start at the hottest point, without having the opportunity to adapt.


So, we were starting at the hottest time in our rotation, doing manual work in an open field, and taking medication that makes us sensitive to sunlight in sub-Saharan Africa. I can't believe my final words to you guys were “It's not as hot as I thought it would be.” In my defense, I never sunburned, and I swear I've had better tans in Canada. Truth is, you have to learn to be sensitive to your body when you stand under the African sun. It will take you down before you feel it.



I think I had the best host family, which made up for Quebec. I was probably the only Canadian that never had to see his host father beat his wives or children. All of the children went to school, which isn't mandatory in Mali. I was probably the only Canadian in both groups to remember the names of everyone in his host family, and my family had one father, two mothers, and eleven children.


Family communities didn't come in the form of a big house, like they do here. Instead, you would have all these little mud huts. Most CWY pairs would live in sort of a remote edge of their family community, but mine was built more like a circle, with all the houses facing inward, so that no matter where I sat, it was always with someone. I felt this may have contributed to how close I got to my family. They even named a newborn child after my Malian name, and “gave” him to me as a godson.


Nobody in my family spoke any French except my host father, who spoke less than I did. In Quebec, I learned about how much people rely on language. In Mali, I learned the opposite. I communicated with those of whom I didn't share a common language just as much as with those of whom I did.


They kept an eye on my meal preferences, too. The food was difficult for me. Before the program, I was worried I wouldn't have enough to satisfy my appetite, but it turned out, I would completely lose my appetite in Africa. I would sometimes wonder, were it not for my counterpart and my family, always yelling at me to eat, whether or not I would have starved myself to death.


This is what I ate


Breakfast: instant coffee and bread, with corn or millet porridge. Breakfast was always enjoyable.

Lunch was: rice with sauce. Either gumbo, green, or peanut sauce. Either that or toh, which was a pastry that you rip chunks off and dip in sauce. That came with fish, gumbo, or red sauce. Lunch was the most intolerable meal.

Dinner: I rotated between potatoes with tomato sauce, spaghetti, and... French fries. Apparently, French fries were a traditional Malian dish.


No matter what they gave me, I was always grateful and never complained, but they observed my reactions and tried to adapt to my preferences. Some Canadians complained that their families would feed them only subsistence food, so they could keep more of the money CWY gave them for themselves. Not my family. I became the one of the only Canadians to be fed French fries on a regular basis.


Work was tedious and mundane. Our first project was creating a garden for the women. This meant, we were tilling lines of earth with little hand-hoes called dabas. We did this for two thirds of the rotation. It was physically exhaustive and not exactly mentally stimulating. I can't really say I learned much through that.


Our other projects were: preparing planting soil, tending trees, putting up fences, developing, dividing and distributing potatoes, and building mud ovens. That last month managed to fit in some interesting stuff.



I had to learn to get comfortable with bartering, too. In Sirakorola, the neighboring village, where the other CWY group was stationed, and which hosted a weekly market every Thursday for all the surrounding villages, you could get by with a pretty simple bartering method: cut the asking price in half, and then work your way up to a quarter less than the asking price. In Sirakorola, everybody knew each other, and if someone ripped someone off, that would get around and effect the business of the merchant.


But there isn't a whole lot that you can buy in Sirakorola. If you want anything cool, you have to get it in Bamako, and Bamako's a different atmosphere. If a merchant sees someone who isn't African, he'll take you as a tourist. He's not going to worry about maintaining a reputation for someone who isn't going to be around very long, so he'll try and get as much out of you as he can. He's also going to assume you don't know the prices for anything, that you want souvenirs to bring home, and that you have tons of money to pay for them. This brings you to situations where someone may give you an asking price of 20 000 francs for something that's only worth 1000 francs. If you implement the Sirakorola bartering method, you'll still pay 15 times more than you should. I never thought I'd adapt to the barter system, but I did, and even got to enjoy it.


Well, that kind of gives an overview of my experience in the program. There's way too much to express in just one letter, but I have to stop somewhere. If I write any more, there's no way anybody is going to read it all in one sitting, anyway. So, thanks for reading, and if I do anything like this again, maybe I'll drop you all another note.