Beautiful friend...the end...

I hate hot season, but I really hate rainy season. In hot season it's just hot. When you walk outside it's like opening the oven to check on your cookies, and that heat just blasts you in the face, but in this case you don't smell the cookies you smell hot garbage. In rainy season it's just as hot, it's 100 times more humid, and the roads are ankle deep in "mud". So, when we arrived in Cinzana on Thursday to find that a freak rainstorm had washed over the village I was not in the best of moods. We arrived with the brick press, two wheel barrows, two shovels, two bicycles, our baggage and ourselves. We were uncertain how we would get to Tongo with all this stuff considering the brick press itself probably weighs over 300 pounds. We spoke to my homologue, Adama, and he suggested we speak to a man in Cinzana who has a truck he uses to sell Mangoes throughout the commune. We sent a runner and the chauffeur arrived approximately 15 minutes later. As he approached and began speaking I could smell alcohol on his breath. This is not very common in Cinzana and I was startled for a second as we spoke. He said he could take the brick press to Tongo for 12, 500 CFA (about 25 dollars). It was a ridiculous price considering I can get from Cinzana to Bamako (A six hour bus ride) for 2,500 CFA. The longer I'm in this country the less likely I am to bargain. I am truly tired of bargaining, I've been in Mali for over two years, the guy has seen me here, he knows I'm not a tourist, but he still wants to bargain. In my mind when you give a ridiculous price you are basically saying, "you're and idiot you have no idea what this costs, so I am going to put the screws to you." I wasn't having any of it and after we yelled at each other for a few minutes he walked away and there I was in a soggy field with a brick machine sinking in the mud. We decided to wait until morning, haul it to the road and try our luck with any cars that might pass on the way to the market in Katiena. We woke at 6 and put all our gear on a donkey cart and headed for the road. We waited for an hour before we decided it would be easier to pay a donkey cart to take it to Tongo. Mary and I would leave and Adama would put all our stuff on a cart and make sure it got on it's way. We probably wouldn't be able to set the press in cement until the next day, but at least it would get to Tongo. We caught a ride and headed for Tongo. Just as we were leaving, we saw a huge truck pull up covered with men. as we turned down the Tongo road, we saw them hoist the machine on the back and come up behind us. We would arrive in Tongo at the same time, and it only cost us 4,000 CFA.

We arrived in Tongo tired and dirty from the ride. We left all the gear by the road and headed into the village to get some water. As we arrived in the village square we noticed all the men milling under the hangar where village meetings take place. We headed over to greet the men and tell them the brick press had arrived. As we approached, I swear I could hear The Doors playing in the background..."This is the end... ". The dirt in the village was stained dark red and the rusty smell of blood hung heavy in the air. As we got closer we saw the men hovering over an entire dead bull carcass. The head had been lopped off and tossed to the side. Hundreds of knives worked over the meat as it was cut in to small chunks and placed in large wash basins. As they were filled, women would put them on their heads and head home to prepare the feast. As the women walked away I could see the blood overflowing and running down their arms. The men were all very busy, so we did a quick greeting and told them we would begin setting the brick press when they were ready. We went to Mary's house and began killing the spiders and scorpions who had taken possession of her house. After an hour or so, the men who were going to help set the press showed up and we headed to the school site. Once there we explained what we were going to do and began mixing cement. we set the press fairly quickly and headed back to Mary's house. We sat there for a little while and then we heard the village square began to come alive with movement and laughter. We stood up and looked over the wall to find the entire village was sitting in the square about to eat lunch. So, we did what any self respecting volunteer would do, and went looking for free food. It only took a second before we were invited to sit down with a group of old men. We washed our hands, and a huge bowl of couscous was placed in front of us. We were told to eat and we obliged. A minute later a man walked up to me and said, "Seydou, Sogo". I stuck out my hands and at least a pound of meat was placed in my palms. I threw it in the bowl and picked out the good pieces. There were a couple young boys eating with us and I gave them the liver, stomach, and brains. You never can tell what you're eating in this country. We finished and sat among the old men until they had finished. We were told to join them in prayer and listened as they asked for peace in the village and a good harvest in the coming season. We held our hands in a bowl shape and repeated after them, then as if splashing water on our face we swept our hands over our head three times completing the prayer. We turned and shook the hands of those surrounding us and thanked them for the food. We headed back to the brick press and put a second layer of cement on the machine. We returned home, passed the day reading and talking to those who came to call on us and then went to sleep under a full moon. We awoke the next morning and closed up Mary's house. Pumped up our tires and rode our bikes back to Cinzana. It was a difficult ride into the wind on a bad road. We arrived at the paved road just in time to see a Peace Corps vehicle passing. We tried to flag it down, but they just kept driving. They must of thought we were just some really excited white bikers, or he just didn't want to have to put our bikes on the roof. Anyways, we had to sit on the side of the road in the sun until a car finally passed and we squeezed in. We made it back to the Segou bureau around two o'clock and fell asleep until the sun had set. We woke up and began figuring out how we would get 14 truckloads of sand and gravel shipped to Tongo on Tuesday. As our COS date approaches the work picks up, a dozen times a day I do the math in my head, "if we start building on June 1st, the first 3 classes will be done by the end of July, then the second block the end of September. that gives us a month to build latrines, built the cisterns, water harvesting system, paint, big party, COS, fly to Spain, delete the Three Dog Night song from my I pod, get on a big boat, eat a lot of food, arrive home, find a job...".