We also visited our woodcarver friend, Pascal today to pick up the pieces we ordered for the Ouelessebougou Alliance benefit auction. I love visiting his shed where he and his helpers work.
We had a couple of hours this evening to pack all the auction items, have a final meal together, and then send our friends off.
Judy and her team had 5 empty totes they let us fill with carvings our friends at home ordered before COVID hit. We were able to fit almost everything in! What a huge relief to send these things home now. When we get home in September, we’ll sort out all the orders.
When the expeditions come from the States, we always make a trip to the Artisan’s Market to purchase items for our annual benefit auction. Today was our only opportunity to do that.
This market is one of my favorite places to photograph. It’s a visual feast! Here are some of the interesting things I saw today, beginning with this mud cloth shop.
Here are some faithful men praying. The Artisan’s Market is right next to the big mosque.
Here’s a leather worker. They make shoes, belts, wallets and other leather goods.
This man is scraping the leather:
How about a crocodile skin?
These are leather covered boxes:
These are boards where they stretch the skins.
Making a man’s belt:
Machine for stitching leather:
For making shoes:
There are plenty of curios and items for sale. There just aren’t many tourists or visitors here anymore. It’s sad to see the effect COVID has had on sales here and on these artists.
Traditional drums and instruments:
I love the old masks. Each face is unique.
This is a silver worker making bracelets for children:
We had a great Sunday service with several of our visitors from the States who are heading back to their families tonight. We love having visitors here.
The adult Sunday School class:
Our Primary:
Judy and John Hut from Salt Lake:
This is Bamako Branch member, Abram Cosby. He’s a teacher at the American School in Bamako.
When you live by the Sahara Desert, dust flies! Every week on Saturday morning we go to the church to help prepare the building for Sunday. It’s no small job.
Frere Dustin always comes to help. He is a Saint.
These are the cleaning tools we have to use:
And this is how it looks when we are finished!
We usually spend most of our Saturdays at the church helping there. Today John and Frere Mbaya worked on membership records.
Today we had to return to Bamako, but our Ouelessebougou Alliance Team returned to the refugee camps to share and teach these good people. I would have liked to have been there. Judy Hut shared these photos with me of Teningnini teaching the women and girls about Days for Girls. They were enthralled and grateful to receive the kits.
Djiba also taught them about basic health care and hygiene and things they can do to keep their living areas clean and safe. They have selected a woman named Mariam who speaks both French and Bambara to act as their Health Matron and our staff will train her so she can teach the others. They’ll begin with our “Good Health Begins at Home” program, followed by the Healthy Village Workshop.
What a blessing this education will be for these friends. I’m so excited our paths have crossed. It feels as if we were led to each other to make this little corner of the world a better place.
In our weekly security reports, we learned that “according to the U.N. Refugee Agency more than two million people are now displaced inside their own countries within the Sahel [sub-Sahara] region of West Africa. The UNHCR reports that internal displacement quadrupled in two years and continues to rise. The region also hosts more than 850,000 refugees with most from Mali.”
I hope Malians throughout the country will rise up to help their neighbors and help them navigate these difficult times.
Here are more of the photos Judy took today of these beautiful women and their Days for Girls kits.
It’s not uncommon here to see vehicles piled so high their center of gravity is a little unstable. Transporting goods from one place to another is an important part of the economy here, and we see all sorts of transporters–from wheelbarrows to donkey carts to three wheeled motorcycles like the one above, piled high with straw for animal feed.
From time to time, a vehicle must swerve to miss another, or a wheel edges off onto the shoulder, throwing everything out of kilter. Today I saw 3 overturned loads as we traveled back to Bamako. This one pictured was the smallest and most easy to correct.
The other tipped loads we passed today were large trucks like this one (photo by my good friend, Djiba). This truck is piled high with bags of coal for cooking fires. It’s not uncommon to see an entire truck lying on it’s side with the once-neatly-stacked load strewn all over the roadside. What a shame after such an engineering feat to load it so carefully!
This morning we visited an IDP Camp not far south of Ouelessebougou main town. We learned of this settlement thanks to Djiba’s keen observation as he drove along the main road one day and noticed a small settlement where there hadn’t been one before. So on the way back, he drove in and talked to this Imam chicken farmer who was his friend and he learned of their situation. Djiba told Anounou and they all came out to check things out. The Alliance ended up donating about 30 bags of millet, enough for each family to eat for 3-4 weeks.
We were greeted by a small group of men, women, and children who were expecting us. They escorted us over to an area where the group was gathered to talk with us. Djiba introduced us, explained why we were wearing masks, and then we asked questions to better understand their situation.
Here’s John’s summary of the things we learned:
• This settlement on the north side of the village of Sousounkoro was the first place occupied by refugees from the Mopti region of north-central Mali, a town called Bandiagara. They are Dogon people. The first had come down about three years ago and chose this location because there was another Dogon person who lived in the village and told them they would be welcome.
• The village chief was willing to let them stay temporarily. As in other refugee settlements we’ve encountered, the village elders observe the newcomers to see if they will be a positive addition to the community. This “testing” lasts up to five years. If they behave themselves, they may be allowed to buy the land where they have settled.
• This community now consists of 12 families, about 90 people. The vast majority have come in the last year, generally fleeing for their lives. We were told of one woman who was forced to watch the throats be slashed of her husband and two sons. She came down here but has since wandered off. They fear she has lost her mind. They fully expect that more of their people will come. They hope to stay here forever and are working hard to prove themselves. Most of the men leave early in the morning for Ouelessebougou to try and find any manual labor jobs they can to earn a little money.
• They shared with us their challenges, none of which were surprising. No clean water close at hand, no farmland to grow food, no school or clinic or mosque, no job opportunities for the men or women. We thanked them for sharing and explained that we were doing a quick visit today because we had to leave for Bamako, but another team would come tomorrow and take a more detailed look at things.
• They were happy to have us walk through the settlement to inspect their living situation. They are clearly very industrious and had built good mud-brick houses, latrines, and ovens. Things were well kept. Just off the edge of the open area where we were seated was their mosque—a plot of dirt that was outlined with 12-inch diameter rocks.
We looked at the crude well they had dug by hand that wasn’t very deep and therefore not very productive. Gratefully, a local group had come out, covered the well for safety, and poured a cement perimeter.
We watched the young boys make mud bricks to build more permanent homes.
We saw the bandaged mid-section of a young teenager who had had some sort of GI surgery at the Ouelessebougou hospital but couldn’t afford to stay there. Up north, he had had to hide in the bush for weeks to avoid capture like his brother and had suffered great physical trauma. His follow-up appt is tomorrow but they don’t have the money to pay for it.
• There was no pleading or begging or other histrionics. It was a serious-minded group of people trying to map out a new life for themselves in a strange new area. They wanted us to understand their situation and hoped we could find ways to help. But they seemed to understand that it would be a process that took time. They had been treated kindly by the village chief and villagers and OA had offered generous help with millet when they needed it most. They were willing to be patient. And grateful.
We gathered with these villagers and listened to their story.
It took us about 10 minutes to drive to the second settlement site, on the south side of Sounsounkoro. We went back onto the main road, then turned west toward Tinkele, Neneko and Selingue. After a bit, we turned south onto a short dirt road and found our second group of Dogon friends. The situation here is much the same as the first site, except they are a smaller group: 10 families with a total of 50 people. And they were granted some farmland use about four miles away. They haven’t farmed it yet. Plus, they are very close to Sousounkoro so they have easy access to schools, the mosque, and a midwife. These refugees have all come within the last year, along with the others in the first settlement. The chief divided them up because the north site was full. They also dug a well by hand, but there was no cement perimeter or safety cover. It was also shallow and polluted. No one is very old in either of these two groups.
These boys are in charge of bringing water to the village. They travel quite a ways to fill the containers, then haul them back with their donkey carts.
Their hand-dug well that helps them get by. The water isn’t clean.
These are the faces that keep me awake at night. I hope we will be able to help here. These people are lovely and kind and trying to survive on very little. I wish all my friends who have plenty could come visit for a day and feel inclined to share a bit more with others.
This afternoon in Faraba Deux we celebrated their new pump well with song and dance. We partnered with LDS Charities to dig this well here, in a place where water is precious and hard to find.
Imagine if you had to go far to find water, and then carry that water to your home every day–every drop for cooking, washing and bathing is precious. This well has helped to relieve some of the burden these good villagers have had to carry (literally).
These women were doing laundry today by the well. What a blessing this will be for this village!
While the women in Faraba 2 learned about Days for Girls and received their feminine hygiene kits, the men met under a mango tree and they had the “Men Who Know” lesson. The chief told us afterwards that it was the most important thing they could have learned.
Djiba and Anounou talked with them about honoring their women and what it means to be a strong man. As the lesson progressed, and these men came to trust their instructors, they asked question after question. They told us that the young girls have their grandmothers to teach them about menstruation, but no one–No One teaches the men about their bodies or about their wives’ bodies. The village chief thanked us over and over again for coming and for bringing this information to them.
This afternoon we taught the women in Faraba 2 about Days for Girls feminine hygiene kits. As you will see from their faces, these kits are a life-changer. The women were intrigued to learn more about their bodies and what happens inside of them each month. Then when they each received a kit to help them manage their menstrual needs, they erupted with joy!
Teningnini is an excellent teacher. She’s taught girls and women throughout the Ouelessebougou commune.
The women practiced snapping the shields and pads around the underwear.
Oh happy day!
We left extra kits for the women who weren’t here today and for the young women who have gone into Bamako to find work. The women did not want a single woman to miss out on receiving a kit. We gave out 43 kits in all. That’s 43 lives changed. It’s the best feeling Ever.
When you live by the Sahara Desert, dust flies! Every week on Saturday morning we go to the church to help prepare the building for Sunday. It’s no small job.
Our Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan East and Bamako, Mali Mission 