Sean and West Africa

Malaria Month Progress

2013-04-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

One way to appreciate the impact of our malaria activities in Guinea is by the numbers. We are religious about collecting data on the work we do so that we can constantly evaluate and improve our work. The Malaria Coordinators (ten volunteers who have been selected to lead malaria efforts in their work zones) are still collecting the vast majority of the data from the volunteers in their zones, so it will be a couple weeks before we have the final numbers. However, I’d like to briefly touch upon a few impressive activities that were done in Guinea to give you a taste!

On April 27^th, Peace Corps Education Volunteer Dante Bugli hosted 19 other volunteers at his site in Wonkifong for a full day of malaria events. Volunteers first gave educational talks at the local school, including a short skit, to four classes of middle school students, reaching a total of 181 students. Afterward, in the school courtyard all students participated in a malaria-themed fair at which they learned how to wash and repair mosquito nets, took photos of themselves with anti-malaria slogans written on their hands, and contributed to a banner by writing “J’aime ma moustiquaire” (I love my mosquito net). Earlier in the week, Dante had worked with three other volunteers to train a group of 30 college students as peer educators. On Saturday, these students split up into six groups and went door-to-door in the community with Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), giving educational talks and helping to hang mosquito nets. In a few short hours, the groups visited over 60 households, reaching a total of 278 women (23 of which were pregnant, an important number since pregnant women are much more susceptible to malaria then

the general population) and 93 men with malaria messages. At the same time, several PCVs set up a malaria-themed stall at the local market, where they had in-depth conversations with 15 market sellers, leading an educational talk with visual aids and messages translated into the local language of Susu. These PCVs also demonstrated how to wash and repair mosquito nets. Finally, the day ended with a soccer match between PCVs and local Red Cross volunteers, which included a halftime malaria skit in local language by actors from the village of Wonkifong. In attendance for the day’s events were Peace Corps Guinea director Julie Burns and US Ambassador Alexander Mark Laskaris. Although the Peace Corps team lost the match 1-0, their Guinean opponents did not score a goal.

In early April, Peace Corps Public Health Volunteer Megan Townsend conducted a two-day training of trainers on malaria prevention with her local CECOJE, or youth group. Upon completion, the new peer educators began home visits in the community to give educational talks on malaria. The peer educators used a “boîte à images,” or visual aid produced by Peace Corps partner Faisons Ensemble with funding from the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). Over the course of 5 days, the peer educators visited 45 households, spreading life-saving malaria information to 258 Guineans. Megan worked with the local health facility to develop a referral form that the peer educators used during their home visits to refer community members with fever to the health center for diagnosis/treatment. They capped off their activities by setting up a stall at the weekly market, where they reached at least 200 people with malaria information.

On April 20^th, Peace Corps Education Volunteer Elizabeth Chadwick invited 12 other volunteers from all sectors to her site for an all-day malaria extravaganza which included school visits, educational talks and culminated in a soccer match. The volunteers started the day at Liz’s middle school in the village of Kolaboui where she teaches Physics and biology. She and the other volunteers visited 12 classrooms to talk to 735 students about malaria and performing a malaria skit. Later, working with 16 student translators, the PCVs split up into groups to give educational talks in 81 households, sensitizing 72 men and 262 women. In the process, they helped to hang up 25 previously unhung mosquito nets. The extravaganza culminated in a soccer match of PCVs vs. students, which the PCVs won narrowly 2-1 in penalty shots. At halftime, the audience of 500 community members watched a malaria skit performed by Guineans and listened to a guest speaker from the health center talk about the importance of malaria

Community Econcomic Development Volunteer Chelsea Erola led a 100 kilometer bike tour with two other Peace Corps Volunteers in the first week of April. Starting from Chelsea’s site of Koba, they visted 10 villages over the course of 4 days. Chelsea worked with the director of her local health center to contact health posts in the surrounding area to set up the bike tour. At each of the villages the volunteers visited, they worked with a translator from the local health post to give a malaria sensitization, using a home-made banner as a visual aid. Their talks included demonstrations of how to hang mosquito nets, as well as how to wash nets when they become dirty. Over the four days of the bike tour the volunteers educated over 800 Guineans on malaria prevention.

Education Volunteer Tess Palmer has challenged herself to hang 300 nets in her community over the course of 30 days, starting in mid-April. The inspiration for this activity came from her first home visits when she realized that many community members had mosquito nets but had not hung them over their sleeping spaces. Tess decided to encourage people to take pride in using their nets by photographing them next to their hung nets. Her project has been so successful that she is running out of nets to hang – so many people in Banko want their photo taken with their nets that they are hanging them up themselves and calling her over to take a picture. So far Tess has hung 46 nets, taken 139 photos and has 21 days remaining.

These short summaries are far from capturing the full impact of these events on the communities they touched. In Guinea, malaria is the single leading cost of consultations in public health facilities, hospitalizations, and death. According to WHO estimates, each year approximately 14,000 Guineans die from a malaria infection or complications from the disease. This makes the decision of whether or not to sleep under a mosquito net a life-saving one, and Peace Corps Volunteers here are doing tremendous work to explain to Guineans that this is the best way that they can protect their families.

Guinea is one of 23 Peace Corps posts that is part of the Stomping Out Malaria in Africa initiative. Follow our work on Facebook by giving a "Like" to our page (https://www.facebook.com/StompOutMalaria), by following our initiative Twitter account (https://twitter.com/StompOutMalaria) and by following our Guinea Twitter account (https://twitter.com/StompM_Guinea).

Stay tuned for even more updates … this is only a peek at the inspiring activities done this month!

Keep Stomping.

New Malaria Video

2013-04-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

Happy World Malaria Day! Malaria itself is nothing to be happy about, but the tremendous effort that is being put into eradicating the disease certainly is worth appreciating. With each new project, Peace Corps' Stomping Out Malaria in Africa initiative is growing stronger. When we started malaria work in Guinea, virtually none of our current partners knew that Peace Corps even had a malaria program. Now, everyone involved in malaria prevention in the country knows what we bring to the table, and we are actively supporting the nationwide mosquito net distribution campaign. I'll write be writing a blog post with more details about this and our exciting Malaria Month competition, but I wanted to share with you the latest promotional video for our initiative, which happens to feature yours truly. The footage was shot at a malaria training I attended in Senegal last June, but I don't think I've changed much since then. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPV1E7cSyto

Latest post from Stomp Guinea

2013-04-03T06:12:00.001-07:00

It has finally happened - I am active on this blog again! See below an update on what we are doing here at Peace Corps Guinea's malaria prevention program, and some of the fruits of my labor over the past few months.

Stomping Out Malaria in Africa – Stomping Toward April

Taking the Political Temperature of Guinea, and other Humanitarian News

2012-09-27T11:34:00.003-07:00

The catchword used to describe the mood in Guinea, and especially Conakry, these days is “tense.” I’m inclined to agree. After an encouraging recent event - a large (deemed 'historic' by some) peaceful march protesting the delays in elections, unrest flared up again with a vengeance. Friday, as I was heading out of Conakry, ethnically-motivated riots broke out in the Madina market and spread throughout different neighborhoods of the city. Peace Corps briefly locked down the volunteers in Conakry due to the unpredictability of the situation. Alliance Guinea released a brief statement condemning the riots which can be found here.

This was followed by violence in the city of Fria between youths frustrated by theft from a failing aluminum factory which used to employ a large number of city residents. Evidently the young and unemployed thought it unjust that some were finding ways to cheat the system and steal the resources from the factory which once offered them a livelihood. It took some time for the police to arrive and calm the situation down. This is hardly the first time violent confrontations linked to labor issues have occurred, and unemployment/financial strain can be added to the list of potential triggers which also includes political and ethnic tension. While only some of the recent unrest has had major repercussions in terms of injuries and loss of life, the frequency and the fact that it is spread across the country are important barometers which President Condé and his party should be paying close attention to. His party (RPG) has some shown some awareness of the seriousness of the situation and have reacted - the chief of the heavily-criticized national electoral commission (CENI) stepped down, as reported by Reuters and hailed by the UN as a sign of progress. And it only took a serious and internationally condemned police crackdown on an opposition march to do it.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the infamous 2009 massacre of peaceful protesters (which included the rape of dozens of women) in the national football stadium. For a succint overview of what has and has not been done since the massacre, see the latest report by Human Rights Watch (via Reliefweb). Also planned for tomorrow is the funeral procession for two youths killed last week in the midst of the unrest. The planned route for the procession runs through many of the main arteries of the city, which is assuredly going to cause problems. The French embassy has released a statement recommending French nationals to avoid the entire route. Such warnings are fairly standard procedure (expatriates are routinely reminded by their embassies to avoid large crowds and political events), but what stands out is the expectation that the funeral procession attract such large numbers of people. The combination of recent political discord, ethnic tensions and other issues is not encouraging, and we are crossing our fingers for a peaceful day tomorrow.

I am happy to report, however, that the protest called for a little over a week ago at the US embassy in Conakry in response to the recent anti-Islamic video never materialized. See the original warning from the US embassy here. Earlier this month, well before the worlwide protests over the video began, the embassy updated its Travel Warning for Guinea:

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Guinea because the political situation there remains unpredictable. This replaces the Travel Warning of November 4, 2011, to update information on the political situation and accompanying security issues. Although Guinea has been relatively calm since the democratically elected President took office in December 2010, legislative elections, which should have taken place shortly after the presidential elections, have been repeatedly delayed, causing increasing frustration and anger. On several occasions, large crowds of demonstrators representing partisans of various opposition parties have gathered at thoroughfares to express their dissatisfaction. If the legislative election cycle is further delayed or postponed, which seems likely, political rhetoric could turn peaceful demonstrations into violent ones.

For the rest of the Travel Warning, which does not mention religious tension, click here. Notice the aforementioned reccomendation to avoid large crowds. This warning as about as succint a summary of the political strife as you can get, but all most American citizens travelling to Guinea want or need to know. Update: The US Embassy has issued their own warning for September 28th.

Many people thought that a protest over the film wouldn't happen in Guinea since there does not seem to be an Islamic extremist community here. Travel up country will reveal a much larger number of orthodox Muslims, but this by no means should be causally linked to violent anti-American sentiment. The more conservative relgious views is evidenced by radically different styles of dress in public. While the hijab is not uncommon anywhere in Guinea, in Kankan for two days I saw more Niqabs and Burqas than in my entire three months in Conakry. However, as always, it's possible to find at least one source that warns about the growth of orthodox Islam and the potential spread of extremism from neighboring countries. This time, rather unexpectedly, it is a Guinean news website which warns its readers and Guinean religious leaders to pay watch this ultra-conservative community closely in light of their call for protests over the film. I have to wonder, though, how strong is this community really? And might a Guinean news website hope to get more page views by delving into an analysis which suggests the trendy topic of growing Islamic extremism? Update: Another article with similar commentary can be found here.

Going back to the international view of the protests, for a fascinating but now slightly dated (since the frequency of protests has slowed considerably), check out the live map put up by The Atlantic Wire.

Now off to the (not so high) seas. I have also learned this past week of piracy occurring just off the coast of Guinea. According to this source, a blog I am unfamiliar with,

On 21 August, seven armed pirates boarded and ransacked an anchored cargo ship 23nm SW of the port city of Conakry, the capital of Guinea. This is the second recent attack in the waters around Conakry Port after a similar incident on 15 July. The attackers held three crew members hostage and injured one officer as they proceeded to seize the vessel’s valuables.

It seems that piracy is slowly creeping its way West up the Gulf of Guinea from the frequently coasts of neighboring countries.

Up north in Mali, the ICRC continues to be one of the only relief organizations able to extensively function and provide aid, despite the immense and numerous challenges of working in the environment. From what I'm hearing, they are playing a key role:

The ICRC, which deploys 111 aid workers in Mali, is one of few humanitarian organisations to have access to all of northern Mali, where no United Nations aid agencies deploy any staff. "It is through concrete actions and our distributions that we manage to gain our acceptance and continue to work. Our dialogue allows us access and the ability to distribute aid," Praz Dessimoz said.

The scale of the need is immense, as the number of displaced persons continues to rise. According to Reuters,

The ICRC distributed food rations to 160,000 needy people in the north during July and August and aims to reach a further 360,000 in the north, as well as 60,000 northerners who fled to Mopti in the south. The total of 580,000 is about one quarter of northern Mali's population before the hostilities, Praz Dessimoz said. The ICRC appealed to donors for a further 25 million Swiss francs ($26.65 million), bringing its annual budget to 60 million francs for Mali, now its fourth biggest worldwide in budgetary terms.

In the latest news on our northern brother, Mali has accepted the presence of an ECOWAS force to push back the Islamist extremists who have taken over the North. However, there is still one more hurdle - United Nations Security Council approval. It's hard for me to say whether this is the right intervention at the right time to help Mali, but the situation has only become increasingly dire as time goes on. It seems to me that although there will be many civilian casualties (as is almost always the case in situations of military intervention) that stabilizing the north is essential to preventing even further loss of innocent lives. Many people are rightfully urging ECOWAS to keep the protection of civilians as its highest priority, and the UN has a key role in putting conditions on the planning of the intervention.

Continuing the humanitarian theme, good news has just come out of the offices of UNICEF, as the agency is reporting a significant drop in deaths of children under five years of age wordlwide. According to UNICEF deputy executive director Geeta Rao Gupta, "These new data are cause to celebrate." The agency suggests that a sustained focus on reducing deaths from transmissible and easily preventable treatable diseases is paying off. Malaria prevention, specifically through the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, one of the primary interventions used here in Guinea, is one of the areas that has contributed to the decline in mortality. This is not surprising, considering that

Malaria is among the biggest killers of children under 5, accounting for 7% of child deaths worldwide — a loss of roughly 0.5 million lives in 2011.

Nonetheless, the challenges remain immense, especially at the regional level where most of those deaths occurred:

Under-five deaths are largely concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounted for almost half of these deaths in 2011, and South Asia, where 33 percent of under-five deaths occurred. In a few instances - Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Somalia - under-five mortality actually rose between 1990 and 2011.

Hopefully with sustained efforts, which at least in malaria prevention are shown to be working, we sub-Saharan Africa will soon be following the global trend too. According to the same report by UNICEF,

Recent studies confirm that the best way to further increase use of ITNs is simply to provide more of them: Even in households that already own at least one net, children still may not sleep under a net because not enough nets are available for all family members.

And some more Guinea news note to finish off this post - the IMF just announced it has classified the country as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country, qualifying it for $2.1 billion of debt relief (AP via NPR). On the economic front Guinea has been struggling recently (in case it wasn't clear enough from the comment that the country needed $2.1 billion of debt relief), and many have been reporting that recent changes in mining codes have been too restrictive. While theoretically Guinean will pocket more profits from its resources with these changes, there is the threat that foreign investment will be substantially reduced, not helping the situation.

Wish us luck in the coming days and I'll be back with an update soon!

Heading out the door

2012-09-20T12:49:00.001-07:00

There has been a spate of articles on Guinea in the international press over the past two weeks. Notably, the New York Times picked up the story of recent rumblings in Conakry, linking it with unrest in Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon and Togo. The article connects back to an earlier post of mine in which I focus on the unpredictability of the situation here - teetering on the edge of collapse, yet within spitting distance of a solid path toward consolidating its democracy. Clearly, the Times is focusing on the negatives in this article, which I found a little too pessimistic (although not wholly unrealistic either).

This points, however, to an issue I was discussing recently with a Guinean writer friend. The international press is fundamentally sensationalist - we know what makes news sell. Thus, coverage is restricted to high-level political developments (postponing of elections), public health emergencies (the cholera outbreak) and unrest (protests and politically-motivated violence) and the occasional piece on the crisis in the mining sector (the government has been making it increasingly difficult for mining companies to operate in Guinea). While I enjoy what I consider to be a respectable amount of objectivity from sources such as Reuters, AP and AFP, their articles are mostly restricted to these topics and tend to paint broad strokes instead of developing deep analysis. Unfortunately, online Guinean news improves little on the level of analysis. Some Guinean websites do, however, have more articles on local issues. Even if the political allegiances of the authors clearly shine through much of the prose, they are valuable additional sources of information. Another source of I have been using is Twitter, although the same problem exists – there are few reliable (in terms of trustworthiness and frequency) sources of news. Suffice to say that following local events, such as recent protests, is best done in person or on the phone with local contacts.
I’ve also begun delving into the local written press, which, how shall I put it? Could be richer. There are no daily newspapers in Guinea, but there are several that publish on a weekly basis. A different paper comes out each day between Monday and Thursday. According to co-workers and friends, these papers vary considerably in reliability. I’ll write more here about these newspapers as I get to know them.

More news on the most recent round of protests, including those over the infamous film which has spawned so much unrest across the world, to come next week, so check back in a few days. Also look for some photos which I hope to take on my short trip! I am headed up country for the first time this weekend, which will be a nice break from the daily grind of Conakry. Hopefully I’ll be healthy on the road - I’m also just getting over my latest bout of illness, in other words I’m feeling like a PCV again! I believe this is largely due to my location in the capital, which allows me an unusual level of dietary control for a volunteer. In short, I was proud of my long streak with no health problems, but feeling very humbled at the moment. This time I’m on metronidazole (brand name Flagyl in the States) for three pills a daily over ten days. Oh, Guinea!

Until next week, I leave you with a photo taken last night here in Conakry:

Fighting Malaria: Stomp Guinea Starting Strong!

2012-09-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've given an update on my work in Guinea as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer, so this blog is due for a post on what I'm doing here with the Stomping out Malaria in Africa initiative! It's been a fascinating journey so far learning about the Guinean health system, the malaria prevalence in country, the particular challenges the government/NGOs/citizens face and what international partners are doing to fight the disease here. As I continue to update this blog over the coming months and as we scale up our malaria prevention activities La Guinée, this brief summary of my work will be greatly expanded upon, so stay tuned!

A question I frequently field from volunteers is "So, what do you do all day?" This question reflects the observation that the structure of my job (I am in an office all day, dress formally, and am always running around to meetings) is different from what most Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) do. As I get to know volunteers better they begin to understand what I do on a much more personal level as I help empower them to reduce malaria in their communities.

Although it feels like there are always a million different tasks at hand, I think of my work as split up into three main responsibilities. The first is supporting PCVs and making sure they have the knowledge and access to resources they need to do malaria projects in their communities. Second is building up the malaria initiative here at Peace Corps Guinea, which requires educating staff members about the importance of our contribution to the Africa-wide malaria initiative and advocating for time and funding for our trainings and projects. Finally, I work closely with partner organizations to stay updated on the malaria prevention efforts going on across Guinea and establish how we can productively support them (complementing their efforts instead of duplicating them). Our partners include a long list of local and international NGOs, as well as the Guinean government and the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI).

An example of some developments with our partners, hot off the presses in this case, is that funding from the Global Fund for a bed net distribution campaign early next year (spearheaded by Catholic Relief Services) has finally come through! This is a huge relief for the malaria prevention community since the funding had been on hold for months due to management concerns. The news means that the ball will finally get rolling on the planning of the distribution campaign, which Peace Corps Guinea will hopes to be involved in.

Going back over to the American embassy and PMI, the latest news is that within the next week PMI will have completed the fiscal year 2013 Guinea Malaria Operational Plan (MOP). The MOP is a major undertaking and a central document used by many partners/stakeholders. According to the PMI website, MOPs

... [P]resent a detailed one-year implementation plan for the President's Malaria Initiative in each designated country. It briefly reviews the current status of malaria control and prevention policies and interventions, identifies challenges and unmet needs if the goals of the PMI are to be achieved, and provides a description of planned activities under the PMI. These Malaria Operational Plans have been endorsed by the U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator and reflect collaborative discussions with the national malaria control programs and partners in country.

In many countries (such as Guinea) the MOP is one of the most authoritative documents on the current malaria situation. It has been an honor to be involved in the effort with the joint PMI/USAID/CDC team to produce this resource!

This is a lot for one Malaria Program Coordinator (my position title) to be involved in, and often there is only barely enough time to get everything done. However, I enjoy every minute of it! The challenges of working in the Guinean context keep me on my toes and I am constantly working across different cultures. I am also encouraged and inspired by the boundless good of the work PCVs are doing in their communities, making them some of my favorite people to work/spend time with. As I have mentioned previously, it is also fascinating to closely follow the planning and budgeting of the resources our partners distribute for malaria prevention in Guinea.
In working with volunteers (and even volunteer trainees!) I've been thrilled to discover that Guinea PCVs have great enthusiasm for going beyond their normal projects to work on reducing malaria in their communities. Much of this motivation stems from the visual reminders of the malaria burden which they see on a daily basis - empty desks, fields and pockets. However, even if the disease did not have such a visible impact, volunteers are always looking for additional ways to support their communities, which is particularly easy with malaria since the interventions favored in Guinea are relatively cheap and easy. Education is the main tools we use as volunteers to encourage communities to protect themselves, and after months/years in our communities, community education is something we are well-versed at doing.

To read a little bit more about what we've been up to, check out the latest post I've written for our official blog over on the Stomping out Malaria in Africa website, which features a number of our current volunteers. More exciting posts with in-depth accounts of their projects will be posted soon, and I'll link to them here as well. There are even more details about our activities in this document which is an update for our partners on the work we have accomplished over the past two months!

Happy reading, and keep Stomping out Malaria!

Repercussions of August 27th Conakry Protests

2012-09-01T12:16:00.002-07:00

Things have calmed down considerably in Conakry since last weekend, but there are ongoing repercussions and rumblings of discontentment in the population. Reflecting on recent events with an experienced international consultant in Conakry, my colleague asserted the common view that Guinea has been teetering on the edge of falling apart for years. When it comes down to it, individual actions taken by leaders can have an unfortunately large effect on the future of a country. In no way trying to sound dramatic, President Condé truly holds the fate of the country in his hands. If not handled properly the underlying tensions can explode outward. Or, on the other hand, if he manages to shepherd Guinea toward transparent elections, stability could take hold and development could accelerate. As my colleague said, although Guinea hasn't been touched by the same kind of civil war experienced in neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia, that does not mean that with some bad luck and bad decisions things can't shift in that direction. It is a very real possibility in a country with underlying ethnic tension, deep poverty, poor governance and deep political divisions. For a slightly more in-depth look at some of these challenges Guinea is facing, see an article over at IRIN.

In further follow-up on the August 27th protests I found out this week that a Peace Corps vehicle carrying our country and regional security officers (but no volunteers) encountered the protests firsthand whlie returning from a trip to the interior last Monday, with some interesting results. Entering Conakry they drove straight into an arm of the protest which had spread across the neighborhood. Rocks were being thrown by citizens and tear gas was being used by police. A menacing group quickly gathered around the Peace Corps vehicle which was forced to slow down facing the crowd. Once the passengers made it clear they were American (and not French, although it's not clear whether it was being "not French" or being "American" that was most helpful), they were defended by some of the protesters and allowed to leave. Nevertheless they were told "you shouldn't be driving here," as if the driver wouldn't have taken any other route had he known what layed before him! The fact is, although this protest was planned in advance, in any developing country there is the risk of spontaneous and unpredictable protests. It's not a reason to avoid these countries, only a reason to exercise good judgment and minimize risk whenever possible.

Following the aftermath of the protests and crackdown, according to news published this morning, the opposition's promise to pull its representatives out of government is holding true. As reported by Reuters, two government ministers have just resigned. I have also heard (uncomfirmed) that several members of CENI (the national independent electoral commission) have resigned as well. In addition, according to opposition leaders quoted by AFP, 120 people were arrested in response to the protest. Over at the UN, the High Commission for Human Rights is expressing its concern:

31 August 2012 – The United Nations human rights office today voiced concern about the excessive use of force by security forces in Guinea in a number of incidents over the past few weeks, and stressed that demonstrators must be allowed to exercise their rights to peaceful assembly and expression.

I forgot to mention in my last post that about two weeks ago while taking a taxi to Taouyah through the neighborhood of Dixinn (Conakry) we ran into President Condé. Or rather, he ran into us - traffic ground to a halt as the President's motorcade pushed through the already heavy afternoon commute. Preceded by blaring sirens, the head of state's car, a dark sedan with tinted windows, was clearly identifiable once it emerged from behind the wall of security forces. It pulled up shortly after passing our taxi and Condé emerged, instantly surrounded by guards, to wave to the crowd. Within a few seconds he had stepped back into the vehicle and the motorcade continued on its way. The whole street was on edge because of the large security presence, namely two pickups with mounted machine guns and at least four dozen soldiers/gendarmes carrying automatic weapons (mostly AK-47s it appeared), fingers on the triggers. At the time it didn't seem like the safest way to get publicity given the unpredictable nature of the streets of Conakry and the decent likelihood that the President would get stuck in traffic. According to a Conakry-based journalist on Twitter, he went out again later in the week in the neighborhood of Kaloum. He also showed up over the weekend at a hospital in Conakry to witness the aftermath of the capsized boat incident described below and did some more meeting and greeting with citizens on the streets.

In Peace Corps news, on Friday I went with office staff to the US Embassy for an awards ceremony for United States Government (USG) employees in Guinea. Several Peace Corps staff were awarded for exemplary service and milestones such as five/ten years with Peace Corps. Amusingly, at least ten minutes were spent awarding embassy drivers (they have many more drivers than Peace Corps) with certificates for having driven for the embassy for 1, 5, 10, 16 and then all the way up to 22 years of service without getting into an accident. Two takeaways from this: accident-free driving is an impressive feat in Guinea, and in the United States we are security-obsessed.

Lastly, in a tragic event yesterday (Friday), a boat leaving Conakry for the islands just offshore capsized, and 30 out of almost 60 passengers are unaccounted for and presumed drowned according to AP. The boat appears to have been loaded with heavy cargo, and when combined with the difficult weather/seas at this time of year (nearing the end of the rainy season) it is a sad but not completely shocking eventuality. Among coastal West African countries such boat accidents are far from rare; in fact in July in a similar event off the shores of Conakry 20 people perished.

On the cholera side of life in Conakry, the outbreak continues to accelerate. According to IRIN, while not quite as hard hit as Sierra Leone, the number of cases in Guinea is rising steadily:

Guinea's capital, Conakry, has been the hardest hit in the country, with 3,247 cases so far. Cholera has also broken out in nine of Guinea's 33 districts, OCHA said.

The reasons why easy the disease can spread so easily here are well documented:

In Guinea, only 19 percent of the population has access to improved sanitation and just half its 10 million people have access to safe drinking water sources.

Myself, another expat and some volunteers are currently seeking ways to support organizations fighting the outbreak such as the NGOs like Doctors without Borders (MSF) and Action Against Hunger (ACF). If you are reading this and know anyone in this line of work in Guinea who can use a hand, please don't hesitate to reach out to us!

Current Political Strife in Guinea

2012-08-28T04:48:00.001-07:00

The political situation isn’t getting any better in Guinea, and could be headed for a significant downward turn if momentum continues in the current direction. There have been an increasing number of relatively small protests in Conakry over the past weeks, but several have resulted in police violence. Tear gas is being used liberally to disperse protesters and rubber bullets as well as life rounds have been employed in the past week. We are getting regular messages from our Country Director instructing those of us who are in Conakry to avoid certain neighborhoods on specific days based on publicly announced protests. These are in addition to updates sent in real time in response to developments in the security situation. It is standard procedure to warn Peace Corps Volunteers and Embassy staff to avoid all large public gatherings, but the increased frequency and its location relatively close to the neighborhood of the Peace Corps office has resulted in unusual restrictions on our movement since early last week.

The most recent event was yesterday when security forces stifled a planned (but illegal) protest in the neighborhood of Matoto. Police movement began late the night before when 30 members of the opposition, including the son of the lead opposition candidate, Cellou Dalein Diallom, were arrested. Security forces proceeded to occupy the planned meeting location and shut down major intersections in Conakry. As protesters arrived in small groups they were pushed back with tear gas and the houses of opposition leaders in the area were also teargassed. As reported by the AFP,

The opposition has been holding regular protests to stand up to what they say is President Alpha Conde's attempts to tinker with the electoral code. At issue is this the country's parliamentary race which has been delayed many times due to disputes between the ruling party and the opposition over the makeup of the electoral list, and of the commission that will referee the race.

Over the weekend, the governor of Conakry issued a decree, outlawing the protest planned for Monday. The opposition decided to go ahead, despite the ban.

Confrontations between protesters and security forces ensued. It is difficult to track down the number of injuries after such events (press coverage of these events is minimal and spotty since there appears to be a low international media presence in Conakry and the Guinean press is not particularly well developed), but it sounds like there were a handful of injuries and a few dozen arrests. Most worryingly, the Associated Press is reporting that live rounds were fired on a car transporting the three top leaders of the opposition to President Condé’s government:

"It's the first time that I have seen something like this happen in Guinea. They were throwing the cannisters, aiming for the car's reservoir. Then they started to shoot," Sidya said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Kouyate's house, where the three had taken cover.

"They completely destroyed the cars that were in the convoy behind us. ... At first, when I heard the shooting, I thought they must be shooting more tear gas. It was when we got out that we saw the impact of the bullets. ... Thank God we were in a bullet-proof car," he said.

The entire Associated Press article is worth reading. Update August 29: A video of some of these events has been posted on YouTube. The opposition has decided to retaliate by removing all politicians who are members of their parties from government, a move which seems risky to me, and could greatly increase tensions. While there currently is no parliament to remove members from because legislative elections have been repeatedly delayed over the past few years (this is one of the issues the opposition regularly protests about), this still means that the opposition is pulling out of the National Transition Council and the National Independent Electoral Commission. The former is currently functioning in the place of parliament and the importance of the latter is paramount. While this move feels drastic (and we'll see whether it actually is acted upon), an attack on the opposition’s convoy is absolutely unacceptable and serious action needs to be taken to ensure that security forces do not continue to perpetrate such acts. Assuming that the details in the report are correct (the only reason I have to question it is that I have only heard this story from one source), I think the full rammifications of firing upon a convoy of opposition leaders will not hit us for some days, and could be quite strong. Update: For a detailed account of the opposition's response (in French), check out Jeune Afrique.

As far as we volunteers are concerned, while travel restrictions within Conakry may be inconvenient at times, it is not yet disrupting our daily lives. There have been a number of small-scale protests in Conakry in recent weeks, and the effect has been minimal on our movement. The streets around the office have been quieter than usual on days when traffic was affected by additional police barrages in the the city, but otherwise we have been able to circulate in a normal way and feel safe when doing so.

Some of these protests have been motivated by violence perpetrated by security forces in Zogota and Siguiri, in the interior of the country. The Associated Press reported in early August on the killing of six people over the course of two different protests. Neither of those two protests were directly aimed at President Alpha Condé and his government, rather they focused on local issues. However, as would be expected, the political opposition to President Condé has been capitalizing on this added disapproval of the ruling party. The opposition has been responding vocally and calling for an independent investigation into the events. For more info on the background of the political problems in Guinea, check out IRIN.

On a less serious, but still security-related note, the Peace Corps office had its annual fire drill/evacuation training with embassy staff last week. We received top marks and a lot of praise from the embassy! In case of emergency, we are prepared.

On the public health side of life in Guinea, the country is still struggling to keep under control a cholera outbreak which began in February of this year. As of AFP reports via ReliefWeb, 2,054 cases have been recorded and 82 people have been killed since the beginning of the outbreak. Fortunately NGOs such as MSF and Action Against Hunger are stepping up to fill the gaps that the government cannot meet. There are no signs that the outbreak is currently affecting the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the Peace Corps office.

For a hauntingly beautiful photo of Conakry taken by MSF staff, click here. The grey sky is typical of the weather over the past month, although in the last week or so we have been starting to get sunnier skies for half of the day if we are lucky. Yesterday, eating lunch on the roof of the office, the view was stunningly gorgeous and a striking reminder of how with a little development Conakry itself could have a thriving tourist industry (currently the best beaches/resorts are on the northern coast of Guinea).

And finally, click here for another quality post from Bruce Whitehouse on the cultural challenges associated with shooting photographs in Mali. Many of the described issues apply to photo-taking elsewhere in West Africa, and it's worth a read!

Updates on Mali, Guinea, surveillance in Africa and others

2012-07-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

President Condé of Guinea has promised that legislative elections will be held before the end of the year. I've heard mostly skepticism regarding the announcement since elections have been scheduled and rescheduled so many times before.

The UN Security Council continues to reject direct military intervention by ECOWAS, while continuing to allow the destruction of cultural heritage. Following up on this reluctance to intervene and its implications, the New York Times has a thought-provoking article which pushes the supporters of the intervention in Libya to reckon with the results we are now seeing in Mali. In Gao, two people were killed while protesting the occupation of the north by the rebels, a small sign of growing discontent but also the inability of the population in the north to stage a mass uprising.

Back to Guinea, mining companies continue to make large investments in the country, most recently Alufer Mining Limited, who is planning a new $400 million bauxite mine. Bauxite is the core component of aluminum. Alufer itself is registered in Guernsey, and will be adding Boffa to its portfolio of mines in Guinea which also includes Kindia and Labé. Even if the large flow of revenue from mines does not trickle down proportionately to Guineans, these investments are significant for Guinea. As Reuters writes of Guinea,

"The country, which also has significant iron ore and gold reserves, relies on minerals for more than 70 percent of its exports."

Mining companies sometimes support malaria prevention activities in the communities around their work zones because doing so has been shown to reduce the malaria burden among their workers. One of the reasons this works is because the malaria transmission cycle requires that there be a regular source of humans to bite, and in addition the fewer infected humans mosquitoes find, the fewer mosquitoes are infected. In a recent Reuters article some of the results of efforts by AngloGold Ashanti were noted,

"Faced with endemic malaria in the 240,000 population town around its Obuasi gold mine in Ghana, AngloGold Ashanti, the world's third largest bullion producer, launched a multi-pronged campaign of bed-nets, indoor insecticide spraying and drugs that cut infections from 79,237 in 2005 to fewer than 16,000 in 2008. The program cost the Johannesburg-based firm $1.3 million a year, but over that time the malaria drug bill at the mine's hospital dropped from $55,000 to $9,800 a month, while work days lost each month fell from 6,983 to just 282."

So far no sign of Alufer undertaking these kinds of activities, but one can hope that they will follow the trend of private sector engagement in malaria prevention! Speaking of malaria, the Economist just published a short but sweet article on the importance and benefits of malaria prevention.

Taking a broader look at Africa, on June 14th the Washington Post published a fascinating article about the increasing emphasis the United States military is placing on surveillance on the continent:

"The previously unreported practice of hiring private companies to spy on huge expanses of African territory — in this region and in North Africa, where a similar surveillance program is aimed at an al-Qaeda affiliate — has been a cornerstone of the U.S. military’s secret activities on the continent."

I'm not sure how I missed this article when it came out, since it is a rare look into the security apparatus that the US is building in Africa and the far-reaching implications of this secret and increasing involvement. Peace Corps Volunteers are constantly dealing with locals who believe that they are spies or soldiers, since this is often the image that they get from TV, film, and sometime firsthand experience. This kind of clandestine activity by the military, when it becomes visible or known, certainly doesn't help us when we are trying to convince our host communities that we have no connection to the military. The article also focuses in particular on the ever-relevant topic of the use of private contractors for sensitive information gathering missions. Slate Afrique just came out with a solid summary and analysis of the Washington Post article. French speakers can read the article here.

And back to the topic of general development, over on the buildOn website there is a new post about buildOn College Chapters, which raise money to build schools in developing countries. Myself and my friend Antonia are both mentioned for our work starting (and in her case leading), our respective chapters at Lewis and Clark College and the University of Oregon which have both just successfully built schools.

A Visit from Washington and a "Dead City"

2012-07-01T03:20:00.000-07:00

This week has been a whirlwind of events in Conakry. I spent most of my time at the Embassy in the USAID section, where the Washington-based malaria team for Guinea held numerous meetings to discuss the Fiscal Year 2013 President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) budget. It was a great opportunity for me to get in on the ground floor and see how initiatives like PMI really function, in particular how they work with the implementing partners that Peace Corps Guinea hopes collaborate with. The Washington team did a great job of helping to promote the role of Peace Corps' Stomping Out Malaria in Africa initiative, which will help key NGOs warm up to the idea of working with our volunteers. The week was also increased my awareness of the immense challenges that Guinea faces in malaria reduction despite the millions of dollars committed by PMI, the Global Fund and a few other donors.

I was impressed by the level of dedication that the Washington team brings to their job and their commitment to finding the most productive ways to use the funds that PMI has allocated to Guinea. They strongly emphasized building the capacity of the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) so that Guineans themselves can better do this kind of analysis and decision-making. The team was made of up two entomologists from CDC Atlanta and two USAID Washington staff members. They worked closely with the PMI in-country staff, who I will also continue to coordinate with over the next year. During pauses between meetings the team leader and I had enjoyed sharing Peace Corps stories since he was an education volunteer in the then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's encouraging to see such a high percentage of USAID staff are Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Another benefit from this week is that all of these former volunteers now have salaries, so I ate a lot of good food before coming down with an intestinal bug late in the week. A special thanks to Tom, Pascal, Ellen and Gail for their support!

The NMCP described to us that one of the reasons they need so much help right now is that they have limited basic capacities and very little money. The agency barely has enough funds to pay for gas to drive to meetings, and a a result have significant outstanding debts with gas sellers in the area. In addition, the only real means of communications the NMCP currently has is four USB internet keys that donors purchased for them. Otherwise they are completely reliant on the notoriously bad phone networks here in Guinea. This is clearly not a sustainable situation for a government agency tasked with tackling the number one cause of mortality and morbidity (malaria, if you've just joined us) in a country of eleven million people. Unfortunately government funding right now is minimal and even that is unpredictable. The NMCP has been promised a large amout of money from the Global Fund, but because of a number of factors the money may get suspended. Lack of qualified staff and management, especially accountants, is one potential reason for suspension. Other primary recipients of Global Fund money are able to pre-hire staff to meet stringent Global Fund requirements, but the NMCP simply doesn't have the funds on hand to do that. Suspension of the money would be a disaster for the fight against malaria in this country which has constant stock-outs of vital tools in the fight against malaria. Almost yearly, Guinea depends on the Global Fund for thousands of doses of SP, hundreds of thousands of rapid diagnostic tests and millions of bed nets and courses of artemisinin-combination therapies.

At the same time that we've been immersed in macro-scale analyses and calculations about malaria prevention in Guinea, I have continued to work on preparing training for the new group of volunteers arriving next week. I've just confirmed that I will be facilitating malaria training sessions for about five total hours spread across the 11 weeks of Pre-Service Training. I'm thrilled to meet the new volunteers and teach them about the rewarding ways they can help prevent malaria in their future host communities!

For the time being, heavy rains continue here in Conakry and are sure to meet the new volunteers upon their arrival. The rains don't appear to be causing any major problems yet except for making it a challenge to dry clothes after doing laundry. On Thursday we witnessed what is known here as a "ville morte," literally "dead city," but a more accurate translation would be something along the lines of a protest or general strike. The idea of "morte," or "death," is that the city shuts down (shops clothes, people stay in, cars don't drive around), so there is no activity or "life." I know I had you worried there for a minute with those sinister undertones! The ville morte was called by the opposition in response to the eteneral postponing of legislative elections. If I'm following correctly, these are essentially the same legislative elections originally scheduled for 2007, but which have subsequently been pushed back every few months until today. Many factors have contributed to the delays, ranging from coups to lack of funding for the National Electoral Commission to general political turmoil and lack of support from the president. Naturally, the political opposition in Guinea is quite upset with the delays. We were advised by the embassy to avoid crowds when driving through Conakry, as we were told that sometimes protestors throw rocks at vehicles. Fortunately, the only unusual thing we saw driving from Taouyah to the Embassy and then to the nearby house of a USAID staff member was light traffic. So, aside from obvious political problems, poor sanitation, miserable communications systems, and insufficient electricity, all is well in Conakry for the moment. In all seriousness, as we know from Mali, things could be a lot worse.

Speaking of our neighbors up north, uncertainty pervades in the upper regions of Mali as power struggles have again broken out between the MNLA and Ansar Dine. It appears that Ansar Dine, a significantly more extremist movement, has won out and controls the north. If it were possible to identify the lesser of two evils, I'd say that Mali just took a step backward. On Thursday, UNESCO listed two world heritage sites in Mali, the city of Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia, as endangered as a result of the unrest and instability in the north. It is with dismay that I now read reports out of Timbuktu saying that irreplacable ancient tombs are now being actively destroyed.

Arrival in Conakry

2012-06-19T10:36:00.001-07:00

After a six-hour delay in Dakar I arrived in Conakry late Sunday night. I received the royal treatment of a home-cooked meal upon arrival at the volunteer house, which never tastes better than after traveling on meager airplane food. So far my life has been mostly confined to Peace Corps property, trying to get through various administrative tasks in order to formalize my stay here, get my bank account up and running to receive local currency, do laundry, check out my apartment, get a Guinean SIM card for my phone, etc.

More importantly, I've jumped straight into work. Yesterday was an overview of the office, staff, my orientation schedule (including language and cultural training), planning for the new training group that arrives in exactly two weeks, and mapping out the health system in Guinea. Today I did even more running around the office, met again with Public Health technical trainer Madiou Diallo to discuess malaria in Guinea and then we drove out to meet with partners at PSI and the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP). Although we were not able to meet everyone we wanted to, we started to lay the groundwork for future partnerships and scheduled meetings for the coming weeks. So far most people are extremely receptive and interested in partnering with Peace Corps and Stomping Out Malaria in Africa. To my delight the two women we met with at the NMCP spoke Bambara, so we chatted for about ten minutes in the language I spoke at site in Mali. As always they were impressed with Peace Corp's ability to train its volunteers in local languages. I'm hoping to begin learning Pulaar in a week or so, another language which is very common in the region of West Africa.

I learned yesterday from our Safety and Security Officer that the two recent evacuations in Peace Corps Guinea's history had nothing to do with volunteer safety. Instead the issues were related to politics (evacuation of all US non-essential staff, which includes the Peace Corps Country Director) and logistics (in the midst of serious strikes which shut down the whole country, Peace Corps was unable to maintain support for volunteers). While that may reassure some of you concerned about my well-being, it doesn't do much against the joke that Guinea is "due" for another coup soon.

The Peace Corps Guinea staff is warm and welcoming just like I have found staff all over West Africa to be, and you would never know they'd been through evacuations if you didn't know the history. It will be a pleasure to work in the same office with them for the coming months. Also, it turns out that the office (and my apartment) are just off the beach. I was welcomed my first evening in Conakry by a beautiful sunset over the Atlantic. Life could be harder.

Conakry has a very different feel than other developing capitals I've been in. Thin, winding, dilapidated (yet paved) streets weave around rundown concrete houses in the neighborhood where the office is. At night there is very little electricity, so a lot of people go outside to walk around the marginally better-lit streets. The most striking difference for me is the vegetation and proximity to the ocean. Compared to Bamako and Dakar the city has a distinctly tropical feel. I'm excited to get out of Conakry in the coming weeks to plan pre-service training modules on malaria for the new volunteers, and eventually to visit the sites of current volunteers!

In the news on Guinea, it looks like the country will miss its national economic growth targets because of the slowing pace of bauxite (a major ingredient in aluminum) and diamond mining. Bauxite mining is a huge industry in Guinea since the country owns an estimated third of the world's reserves. The slowdown is partly blamed on workers demanding better pay, who are continuing Guinea's rich history of strikes.

Back in Mali, negotiations between the group Ansar Dine and Burkinabe mediator Blaise Compaore appear to be going well, where thousands of ECOWAS troops are standing by to retake control of northern Mali. However, there is still no progress on UN approval for an intervention so ECOWAS is unlikely to move anytime soon.

buildOn Story and Stomping out Malaria!

2012-06-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

Over at the website of buildOn, a great organization I used to work for, I've just been profiled on their blog. Thanks to Clarisa Ramirez for being interested in my experiences with buildOn and interviewing me! As I describe in the article, I volunteered with buildOn in high school and traveled to Mali with them to help build a school in 2006. I never imagined that I would end up going back as a Peace Corps Volunteer! More recently I briefly worked with the buildOn Nepal office and helped to found a buildOn chapter in 2011 at Lewis & Clark College. The members of that chapter just came back from Malawi, where they helped build a school that they raised all the money to pay for.

As for my current work, Malaria Boot Camp is finishing up today and tomorrow I'm headed to Conakry for the first time. I'm now posting over at the website for Stomping Out Malaria in Africa as part of my responsibilities as Malaria Program Coordinator for Peace Corps Guinea. I most recently wrote a summary there of Malaria Boot Camp. I'm very excited about the direction Peace Corps is going with this initiative, and I can't wait to start work in Conakry!

You can follow my posts on the progress Guinea is making toward reducing malaria here: Guinea | Stomping Out Malaria in Africa. In addition Stomp Guinea now has a Twitter account that will be regularly updated: https://twitter.com/StompM_Guinea

On to Conakry, I hope you follow along!

News and Insight out of Mali and Senegal

2012-06-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

Mali has been relatively calm for the past two weeks or so. In Bamako, disagreements and tense politics are being played out less in the streets and more in closed-door meetings. In the north, secessionist rebels and terrorists have been more or less quietly settling their disagreements and working out power struggles as peacefully as one could expect. The absence of interim president Diocounda Traore (still in France for treatment after the recent beating he suffered at the hands of protesters) has not resulted in another power shift. Junta leader Sanogo more or less agreed to calmly take himself out of the equation when he agreed to receive a huge mansion and the salary of a former head of state. Unfortunately there are many things that people can do without making a lot of noise (especially when said people control the whole region), such as traffic arms and drugs and train terrorists.

Will the lawlessness occurring in the north continue without widespread violence? Alex Thurston writes on Sahel Blog about an AFP report of clashes near Kidal between MNLA and Ansar Dine fighters, which could be a worrying development (the status of the previously reported agreement to merge the two groups is uncertain). At this point I think the relative calm that results from a balance between them is better for Malians than infighting. There are enough weapons and fighters circulating in the Azawad that even if the MNLA and Ansar Dine destroyed each other another group would emerge or take control before order could be restored by law-abiding citizens. The same article also describes some protests against the armed groups in the region that were violently put down, another manifestation of the consistent but unfortunately moderate undercurrent against the occupation of the northern regions.

With the islamic extremism, arms trafficking, political fragmentation, minimal (or no) government presence and a number of other shared factors, the Afghanistan-Mali comparison is now commonplace for a number of reasons. In fact France24 cites an interview with the President of Niger in which he states that Afghan and Pakistani jihadists are now operating in northern Mali. Newly-appointed foreign minister for French President François Hollande, Laurent Fabius, drew the allusion again while presenting his fears that French military involvement in Mali could result in a "west African Afghanistan." The Economist makes a striking point about where the power lies in governing the northern territory and the risks involved in letting the situation continue to deteriorate asserting,

This is the closest to government that al-Qaeda, under any guise, has ever come.

Bruce Whitehouse, the oft cited "Bamako Bruce," whose blog has attained great popularity since the military coup in March, writes another quality post about the goings-on in Bamako here. He notes that the African Union chief has acted on his pledge to take up the Mali situation with the UN, and discussions are ongoing in Abidjan. As AFP reports,

Talks on a possible military intervention in Mali opened Thursday in Abidjan between officials from the United Nations, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

There is no word yet on the outcome, which will be interesting considering the strong need for foreign military intervention and the strong resistance to it domestically and internationally.

The numbers of Malians displaced by the conflict (both to other parts of the country and neighboring countries) tops 320,000. The UNHCR has called for a large increase in funding to meet numerous needs in the region, but the Malian conflict in particular.

As if this all weren't enough, Mali and Niger, both facing serious food shortages, can be expecting a large locust swarm in a few months. The Los Angeles Times writes,

Now Mali and neighboring Niger are facing swarms of locusts, which were left uncontrolled while Libya and Algeria, which normally keep local locusts from moving south, grappled with conflicts and insecurity of their own.

Here at Malaria Boot Camp in Senegal, I'm lucky to be reunited with Virginia, a volunteer in Mali, as well as two members of Peace Corps Mali staff with whom I worked. At the boot camp here in Thiès, Senegal, we are each representing our countries as members of Peace Corps' Stomping Out Malaria in Africa initiative. I'm sad to not be here to represent Mali, but I have already found opportunities to contribute my knowledge about malaria-fighting efforts in Mali. At the same time I'm increasingly excited about the many ways Peace Corps Guinea can fight malaria and how I can contribute to that effort.

Being with Malians here also provides me with an unusual opportunity to discuss how things are going in Mali from an on-the-ground perspective. Peace Corps is still hoping to reopen the program at some point in time, but it's hard to say when that will be possible. Below Mopti region (just south of Timbuktu) life has been slowly returning to normal in a lot of ways. Many banks are open; for example, in Sikasso region I'm hearing that the banks were only closed for about a week after the military took power. Banks have not yet opened up at my former site in Niono, according to my former homologue in the city. That means that people have to travel at least 70 kilometers to withdraw cash or perform most other operations.

In their assessments of the situation the characteristic Malian optimism is in play - despite all the bad things that have resulted from the rebellion and coup, Malians are determined to look toward the future and draw whatever positive lessons they can from the experience. When I started a conversation with a Malian about how negative an effect of the coup on the country, I soon found myself agreeing with him that in the end maybe this will teach Malians the advantages of committing to a democratic process. Certainly an admirable attempt to find the silver lining. I know many people who think that this perspective leads to not strongly enough condemning the leaders of the coup and their actions. There is definitely a line between seeking out a bright spot/silver lining and refusing to see the negative effects of an event. However, the line can be hard for a foreigner to see in Malian culture. I think that the relentless optimism can lead certain people (such as youth and those with little education) to misunderstand and misjudge events such as the coup and its aftermath.

Next steps - Guinea!

2012-05-31T00:12:00.000-07:00

After evacuation from Mali was announced, I knew that no matter what happened I wasn't done with Peace Corps, and Peace Corps wasn't done with me. I applied for a new position, this time as a Peace Corps Response volunteer, which is somewhat different from being a Volunteer. As described on the Peace Corps website,

Peace Corps Response offers seasoned professionals the opportunity to undertake short-term, high-impact assignments in various programs around the world. Positions average six months in length and are designed to address development needs as identified by the host country.

Volunteers who have completed two years of service are also invited to apply for Response positions, and in fact until recently only returned volunteers were eligible for Response. After a intensive yet rushed application process, I was invited to serve as Malaria Program Coordinator for Peace Corps Guinea, with a departure date of June 4th, 2012. While I complain jokingly about the length of the process (five weeks from start to finish for Response), the equivalent process to get my invitation to Mali took ten months.

So, Guinea. Where exactly is that again? It's been a popular question recently. A fun game I like to play is "name the Guineas!" Pinpoint as many as you can on the map:

Papua New Guinea
New Guinea
Equatorial Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea
Guinea Bissau
Guinea

A little confused? So was I at first. Here's the answer key:

Papua New Guinea is a country that lies on the island of New Guinea (two in one, how about that?) just north of Australia. The west half of the island of New Guinea consists of two Indonesian provinces.
Equatorial Guinea lies on the coast of central Africa, and was cohost of the African Cup of Nations this year, a continent-wide soccer tournament.
The Gulf of Guinea is found on the western coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. Countries with coasts on the Gulf of Guinea include Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon and, of course, Equatorial Guinea.
Guinea-Bissau is a relatively small country located in West Africa, bordering Senegal and Guinea.

That leaves ... Guinea. Also known as the Republic of Guinea, this country of approximately 10 million people (about the population of the states of Michigan or Georgia) is located in West Africa. It borders Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mali to the north, Côte d'Ivoire to the east, and Liberia and Sierra Leone to the south. The capital city, Conakry, lies on the coast and is home to 2.3 million people (a fifth of the population), and will also be my home for the next nine to twelve months. It's about 600 miles (1000 kilometers) from Bamako.

I'll write a longer post about Guinea and in particular its malaria outlook, but here are a few basic facts to start off. According to the World Bank, Guinea is among the poorest countries in the world, with over 43% of the population living under $1.25 (PPP)* per day. In comparison, Mali is even poorer, with over 50% living below the same level. About 85% of Guineans are Muslim, and about 10% are Christian, numbers that aren't too different from its neighbors Mali and Senegal. Bauxite is the country's major export, but almost a third of the world's known supply of this essential component of aluminum are found within Guinea's borders.

Coming off of my experience of political strife and conflict in Mali, I was interested to look at the current situation in Guinea. Could Guinea experience a coup in the next few months or other unrest worthy of an evacuation? After reading my previous posts about the evolution of events in Mali, I wouldn't be surprised if you were asking the same question too. At the risk of seeming paranoid or pessimistic, here are some of the things that struck me in my readings on Guinea.

After a half century of dictatorship, Guinea still has a lot of work to do and that's to be expected. The current president, Alpha Condé, is the first democratically elected head of state since independence from France in 1958. Several weeks ago, there were violent clashes between civilians and security forces in Conakry as protesters accused President Condé of stalling in front of legislative elections and planning to rig them, which saw at least 40 people injured. On Tuesday, News24 reported that opponents of Condé allege 60 or more protesters are still being detained by the government. In addition, last July, nine months before the coup in Mali, there was a coup attempt in Guinea during which the the president's residence was shelled. President Condé himself was unharmed.

Peace Corps has struggled with the question of stability in Guinea. Volunteers have been evacuated from the country twice in recent years, first in 2007 following civil unrest. The program reopened shortly after and operated until September 2009, when security forces massacred over 150 protesters. International condemnation was swift but volunteer security was in question, so they were evacuated and the program was temporarily suspended. According to Peace Corps Wiki, Response volunteers returned to Guinea in December 2010, and the first stage since reopening the program was 22 education volunteers who arrived in July 2011. Ironically, during the 2009 evacuation, Guinea volunteers were sent to the Peace Corps Mali training center outside of Bamako, where we Mali volunteer spent our last days before evacuation.

It sounds like Peace Corps Guinea is still rebuilding its capacity following the most recent evacuation as there are relatively few volunteers in country at the moment, at least not compared to the 180 in Mali. At this point in time, I see some warning signs that should be heeded but no reason why Guinea would be more likely to go down the road of conflict than many of its neighbors. Protests don't always snowball into coups or conflicts. Looking around, despite hot conflicts in a number of neighboring countries in past decades, Guinea has remained relatively calm. At this point in time, the challenges it faces in consolidating its democracy are not necessarily greater than those of other countries in West Africa.

So, on to Guinea! I have heard wonderful things about the country and its people. We were all told that if we went to another country with Peace Corps we should try not to compare it too much to Mali at the risk of being disappointed. So I'm excited to step into Guinea with an open heart and mind, ready to embrace its own uniqueness.

*PPP, short for Purchasing Power Parity, is a statistical tool which allows for the direct comparison of the cost of identical products and services between countries by accounting for exchange rates. More in-depth definitions of PPD, which are commonly used in analysis of poverty levels, can be found on the websites of the UN and the OECD.

The Deteriorating North

2012-05-28T22:33:00.002-07:00

For Mali the hits just keep on coming. The North continues to deteriorate with additional armed groups making their presence known in the past weeks, some attempts by locals to rise up against the occupiers of Timbuktu, definitive news that the Islamist group Ansar Dine is the one really in control now instead of the MNLA and horrifying accounts of the punishments authorized under the proclaimed shari'a law in northern Mali. On top of all this AQIM continues to operate freely, reportedly bringing in hundreds of operatives from around North and West Africa. After all, there is nobody to stop them from doing what they want to entrench a base of operations in the desert region, and they have suggested that from Mali they will stage attacks on Algerian targets. Other recent Al Qaeda movements include foiled attacks on the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, and while this attack may not have been ordered from top AQIM leadership, it is another example of the organization's reach in the region. On his blog Bruce Whitehouse quoted the President of Benin as warning of the "Afghanistanization" of Mali. Indeed, the heads of the WFP and UNHCR stated,

“Now is the time to mobilize resources, including timely financial support as well as coming together in order to find political solutions necessary to avoid the Mali crisis further threatening regional security and evolving into a global threat to security.”

Emphasis on the last few words: evolving into a global threat to security. As difficult as it is to accept that the situation in the country I left just over two months ago might now evolve into a global threat to security, that is an accurate analysis. The disastrous and unprecedented developments have already created a dangerously unstable situation, and it is unfortunately easy to imagine the situation deteriorating. Worryingly, on Saturday, the previous self-proclaimed "secular" FNLA leadership and Ansar Dine agreed to the imposition of Shari'a law in the "newly independent Azawad." This could be further evidence of Ansar Dine's current dominance in northern Mali, since earlier this year the FNLA stressed that it was not a religious movement.

It's increasingly difficult for the rest of the world to stand by and watch what Amensty International is calling "Mali's worst human rights situation in 50 years." In other words, the greatest human rights crisis since the independence of Mali in 1960. ECOWAS continues its attempts to be aggressive in opposing Sanogo and the coup. This is not an easy task since the stakes are high, the situation is complicated and the military muscle of ECOWAS is limited. According to an article quoted on Alex Thurston's blog ECOWAS is just waiting for the green light from the United Nations to send in troops to stabilize the country, and perhaps some other states will step forward with tactical support as well. The US has repeatedly voiced its support for the ECOWAS transition plan, and is now considering offering logistics and military planners. In a move to appease Sanogo, ECOWAS offered him the benefits of an ex-head of state, which include a large house and equally large salary.

The political situation in Bamako is faring no better, as the military recently allowed a large group of protesters to enter the presidential palace and attack the interim president Dioncounda Traore. Traore was rushed to the hospital with head injuries and has since flown to France, ostensibly for further medical treatment (although people close to Dioncounda are now saying that the trip had been planned for months). I fear this is a bad sign for stability in the coming weeks since Traore, who was already widely criticized, may see his legitimacy reduced even further in the eyes of Malians because of his trip to France. The rumor mill which has been so active and destructive since the coup could easily make a big deal about Traore's trip to their former colonizer. The story could easily be maliciously turned from a legitimate medical consultation to scheming between a puppet president and the Elysée. Fortunately, however, from what I hear President Hollande is more popular in Bamako than outgoing president Nicholas Sarkozy.

According to the FAO statistics as reported by IRIN, the price of a 100kg bag of millet in Bamako has more than doubled from this time last year. A rise in food prices is not unexpected, but price volatility this great has the potential to be disastrous. The increase is not solely a product of the instability within Mali, as other countries such as Burkina Faso are experiencing similar rises in price, and the rises are expected to continue up to the end of hungry season (approximately August). It is further evidence of a great need for a strong, swift and coordinated response to the famine warnings.

Tribal violence flared up on the border between Mali and Burkina as well, as Dogon and Peul clashed over livestock herding routes. This has historically been an issue and is not a direct result of the coup or rebellion. However ousted President ATT was instrumental in orchestrating cooperation between the two groups, namely the use of specific paths to keep cattle from trampling crops. Even if the same violence could have occurred were a democratic government intact, the current absence of any central government and a weak military raises the specter of such violence continuing without accountability.

In other regional news, an American citizen was kidnapped in Benin. For the moment responsibility has not been claimed and there is no evident motive.

UPDATE: According to AFP, the agreement between the FNLA and Ansar Dine has "unraveled." At the same time, Jeune Afrique reports that Ansar Dine and AQIM are working more closely together than ever. And worryingly, news has broken that AQIM has taken control of a huge underground weapons cache belonging to the Malian government. According to AFP:

A regional security source confirmed the seizure, saying the vast cache of weapons will "really boost AQIM's striking power", and adding: "It is really impressive what AQIM has found in the underground depot."

The source said the group "is today more armed than the combined armies of Mali and Burkina Faso", Mali's neighbour to the east.

This news is dismaying to say the least. Given the flow of military aid from the United States to Mali in recent years and the general lack of equipment in the Malian military, the tone of the "security source" quoted in this article makes me wonder whether some of the weapons in the cache may have been acquired through military aid. In addition, it's worth noting that despite being completely out of government control for two months, this is the first we've heard about the weapons cache in Gao. How did it take AQIM, or any other group for that matter, two months to access find or it?

On Sunday Al Jazeera also published a video on their website with a lot of footage from inside the conflict zone that is northern Mali.

The Long Wait is Over, Part 2

2012-05-17T09:34:00.001-07:00

The Long Wait is Over, Part 2

When the Peace Corps vehicle finally arrived to pick us up in Bamako we discovered that the driver was none other than Seydou. He was one of my favorite drivers and just one important part of the amazing Peace Corps staff. I always think of Seydou as perennially optimistic and having a great sense of humor. He drove us on many of the long, bumpy and overloaded bus rides we took as trainees. During training he also shuttled us back to Bamako when we were too sick to stay at homestay and brought trainers out to our villages to teach us the ins and outs of our jobs. In short, he was our connection between the developing and developed world, or at least the struggles of the former and the resources of the latter. We reveled in the rare air conditioning in the vehicles (as weak as it was) often the only cool breeze we’d experienced since the last ride weeks ago. That night in Bamako despite all the emotions and distractions we were still nothing if not Peace Corps volunteers, and would eagerly soak up the cool air inside the van.

We greeted Seydou warmly, reunited with an old friend, while he helped us pack our bags into the van. The feelings were bittersweet since we now knew it would be one of the last times he would drive us. Seydou always took good care of us and was happy to make extra stops if we needed to buy a necessity such as phone credit. Or more likely we’d simply open a window in the middle of heavy traffic and buy the phone credit scratch cards off of a vendor walking (or jogging) alongside the vehicle. Seydou’s was a good driver, but despite his skills Malian infrastructure is a force to be reckoned with. When driving across city streets and dirt roads he would good naturedly look into the rear-view mirror and wave at us whenever we hit especially big bumps. We could tell that he found our cursing, moans and occasional cries of pain more than a little amusing, and we didn’t blame him. What could be funnier than a bus full of Toubabs expressing the everyday discomforts of Malian transportation in their native tongues? He had a lot of respect for us but I think he still thought we were a little soft. In the end though his ear-to-ear grins made us smile too. Even if from time to time we were pretty sure he hit a bump on purpose.

As we drove through the streets of Bamako on our way to Tubani So that night the van was unusually silent. Once again we peered out the windows to see what we could ascertain about the situation in the capital, the location where the fateful coup d’état had taken place. Some Malians stared back from the dimly-lit streets, but soon I realized that more and more people were crowded in front of TVs. We periodically passed shops with TVs set up outside, and there large crowds had gathered. In my experience Mali is, like many developing countries, normally a place where life goes on no matter what. The daily grind is not to be stopped for trivial matters. The most interesting soccer games and pivotal speeches rarely have a direct effect on the average Malian who works hard for their daily Tô. So to me the empty streets and dozens upon dozens of men crowded around TVs was remarkable, making me feel that the moment we were living in was that much more surreal. Perhaps the only time I’d seen such focused attention from Malians was when the country’s national team made it into the semi-finals of the African Cup of Nations in February. Some crowds had even arranged themselves by height so that everyone could see the TV – a rare site indeed. What was going on?

We discovered it was an announcement by the leader of the military junta in response to sanctions put it in place by ECOWAS. I wondered if Malians were finally coming to terms with the gravity of the situation their country was in. During consolidation many volunteers reported that their host communities just didn’t understand the potential dangers stemming from the coup. It seemed too distant and abstract a threat. Like I said, people are concerned with getting food in their bowls. In many villages the government has a minimal presence to begin with. Besides, last time the government was overthrown the leader of that coup was elected president of the country. That election marked the beginning of the period that earned Mali the reputation of the most stable democracy in West Africa. So things couldn’t turn out so bad, could they?

Having spent much more time observing Sanogo and the junta I am still struck by how much uncertainty there was in the days and weeks immediately following the coup. It was a very different uncertainty for us volunteers than it was for the Malians, however. Although we guessed accurately that the coup would be disastrous and that Sanogo would cling to power, those predictions were based on judgments about military strength and historical precedent. The day-to-day unfolding of the situation raised so many more questions than it did answers and we knew little about the junta’s real motivations. It seemed incredible that a group of soldiers that size could overthrow the government so quickly and easily, even if it had been done before. We kept waiting to hear who was really backing them (no one, as it turns out), whether the people would rise up against them (they haven’t), whether there would be some kind of outside intervention (there still hasn’t been), whether violence would spread throughout the country (it has been contained in the North) whether there would be an immediate food crisis (still on schedule for later this year) and whether the junta would give up power after succumbing to infighting (turns out the same guy is still in control).

We arrived at Tubani So with all these thoughts and questions running through our exhausted minds and were happy to see dinner being put out for us by the Tubani So staff. This was the start of an impressive display of hospitality and coordination that continued up until the end of consolidation. Preparing three meals a day for 180+ volunteers is a challenging task. The food wasn’t much different from what we ate during training and little more imaginative (rice and sauce, beans, salad, the occasional Malian-style pizza, etc.), but the quality was consistently good. Since we were among the first volunteers to arrive the internet wasn’t completely overloaded and a few of us hopped online to send messages home and read the official evacuation order from our country director. Reading the full evacuation message started to give some concreteness to the knowledge that we would be leaving. And yet my friends and I had just been there a few months ago for our pre-service training, making all the mental and physical preparations to complete two years of service. And there we were back at Tubani So just two weeks we were scheduled to return for the training that would mark the completion of our first three months at site. So in a way the timing wasn’t as jarring for my stage as it was for many other volunteers. The reality of our situation would still take a few days to sink in. So in the mean time we moved into the huts that make up the living quarters of Tubani So. Most huts house three volunteers, but because of the high temperatures anyone who had a mosquito tent (generically referred to in Peace Corps as Bug Huts, the name of an REI-brand tent) moved outside to beat the heat and look up at the stars while trying to sleep. In the dark we kept running into people that we knew but hadn’t seen in ages as we lugged our belongs across Tubani So, brushed our teeth at the spigots and used the pit latrines.

Returning to Tubani So in fact marked the start of a mass reunion. Many volunteers hadn’t seen each other in months, some in over a year. Some were reunited with staff members they had worked with during training but hadn’t seen since. A lot of volunteers met each other for the first time. We could feel the social dynamics shifting from what they were during the past ten days at our regional houses. The Peace Corps experience has the potential to bond people together tightly, and can puts pressure on people who might not get along well in another context to build close relationships in spite of their differences. It can also put people at each other’s throats, but I’m happy to say that this happens much less often. As we came to grips with the fact that we would soon be far away from our closest friends a lot of volunteers began to prioritize those closer relationships, a shift from the mutual dependence that we experienced in our regional houses where we had no say in the 20 or 30 people we spent time with.

In spite of certain advantages of being at Tubani So such as being with friends, a good number of volunteers were unhappy to be returning there. The center is used almost exclusively for pre-service and in-service trainings, so it’s a place where we spent very little time compared to the rest of our work in Mali. Those times are intense and formative, while occasionally frustrating, boring and unpleasant. Being at the training center has its advantages during PST, such as running water and electricity, but once a volunteer has been on site for a little while Tubani So is easy to beat. We really get settled into our villages with our routines and preferences, amenities notwithstanding. We find ways to access those amenities or make up our own. In addition our regional houses where we’d been cooped up were more luxurious (some air conditioning, at least the infrastructure for hot showers, kitchens at our disposal, nearby markets, 20 people online at a time instead of 100, etc.). I must say that I wasn’t looking forward to the lack of amenities at Tubani So either. What I was excited about was returning to a place that had come to feel like my first home in Peace Corps Mali. There I got to spend time with my friends whose homestay villages were far from my own. At Tubani So I first met our trainers, other volunteers who to this day continue to inspire me. There I also practiced and translated my French speech for our swearing-in ceremony. My friend Anthony and I rehearsed our choreographed dance to Lady Gaga’s song Bad Romance there. It was where we celebrated Christmas together. It was where I first met many good friends and shared many good laughs.

There were some undeniably good times during consolidation at Tubani So. One night we had a reception for the Peace Corps couple whose marriage I attended in Segou, as well as another volunteer, Deborah, who wedded her Malian husband around the same time. We had great food those nights as the kitchen staff pulled out all the stops with the help of volunteers. The culinary delights included burgers, a beautiful birthday cake and sorbet which had been brought in from Bamako. Who knew such delicacies existed in Mali? Another night after dinner we watched films that two regions had made at their stage houses during consolidation. One was a Peace Corps version of the Olympics which included such rigorous tasks as the Bug Hut set-up race (your entire team has to set up and get inside the zipped-up tent before the others), bobbing for mangoes and caterpillar eating. The other was a horrifyingly realistic and entertaining zombie flick created by the volunteers from Kita. Needless to say those of us who did not participate in the making of a video spent the next few days wondering why on earth we hadn’t.

That’s not to say that we had an abundance of time with nothing to do. We were all grateful to the Peace Corps staff for going out of their way to help meet our many, diverse and often urgent needs. We could tell that everyone was overworked, stressed, and short on rest. Yet it was reassuring to be back with them instead of feeling rather isolated at our regional houses. We felt like we were in good hands at Tubani So. In addition to planning sessions, transportation when necessary and all manner of services we needed the staff also periodically asked us for feedback on how they were doing. One of many useful services they were able to provide was bringing in a money exchanger so that we could convert our leftover cfa to dollars or any other currency we thought we might need. To keep us in good spirits a vehicle was arranged to take us to the American Club via a roundabout route that stuck to the calmest parts of the city. They also organized the language exams to officially record our level of language proficiency. There was a dizzying array of other administrative tasks to be accomplished that we simply could not have finished without their help. Paperwork related to our sites, our DOS (description of service, the only official record of our activities as volunteers), cataloguing our belongings left in village, figuring out payment for the previous month’s rent and utilities, etc.

When volunteers leave the country they are required to close their Malian bank account. Most of us used BNDA (la Banque Nationale de Developpement Agricole) and closing the accounts meant taking all of the volunteers with BNDA accounts to the Bamako branch, waiting in line, withdrawing all our money and instructing the bank to close the account. The BNDA was packed that day, and I imagine many people were emptying their accounts or withdrawing large sums of money like us. It’s difficult to get change for large bills in Mali, and thus small change is highly valued. This is especially true for expats like us who typically withdraw large amounts at a time and get stuck with 10,000 cfa bills. As a far as I know this is the largest denomination in cfa, which is equivalent to about $20 in the United States. So I took it as a sign that the bank wasn’t paying much attention to its ability to make change, just its ability to move cash, when instead of paying me 200,000 cfa in 10,000 cfa bills, I received a crisp stack of 100 2,000 cfa bills. I had never seen so much small change in Mali, and its scarcity made it worth much more than its monetary value. On the ride back to Tubani So on Peace Corps transport (at this point feeling rather safe in downtown Bamako since violence had subsided) we joked about how fantastic a target we were for criminals at that moment – a bus full of Toubabs carrying millions of cfa.

We had learned during consolidation that if evacuation occurred it was most likely we’d be headed to a neighboring country for a COS (close of service) conference. There our options for our future with or without Peace Corps would be presented to us. At Tubani So it was said that the likely scenario for most volunteers would be heading back to the United States before being offered the opportunity to serve in a different country. According to a Peace Corps staff member who had come to help the Mali bureau through the process of evacuation (unfortunately Peace Corps has had a lot of experience over the years evacuating volunteers and suspending/closing programs) there would be virtually no transfer opportunities. Transfers, he explained, involve sending volunteers directly from their COS conference to another country where they continue their service. Apparently Peace Corps had started to phase out direct transfers because volunteers who transferred immediately after evacuations struggled more at their next post than volunteers who had some time off in between.

We also learned that we would all be offered the opportunity to have a flight booked to our home of record (the place that we indicated to Peace Corps was our permanent address in the United States) or the option to receive the money that would have been spent on our ticket. The latter option is known as “cash en lieu.” With “cash en lieu” we could use the money to book a flight home ourselves, maybe even saving a few pennies, to book a trip somewhere else or to do whatever we pleased. With this news a lot volunteers started looking at how much flights home would cost and comparing that price to the cost of travelling for a few weeks or even months. Being able to look at flights returned to us some of the sense of agency that we had given up when we accepted that our fate as it related to Mali was far beyond our control, resting on the decisions of the government of the United States and the actions of the military junta.

Before becoming a volunteer and even through part of training I had imagined that once volunteers went to site they were alone, isolated, and generally left to fend for themselves. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Sure, volunteers can isolate themselves and become “site rats,” meaning they stay in village and don’t come into their regional capitals (as counterintuitive as it seems, site rats are often regarded with a kind of reverence – spending months on site is tough to do). However as you can see, most volunteers in Mali rely heavily on their friends. While on site we texted and called each other and we planned to meet up in the regional capitals or in nearby towns on market days. We were each other’s support systems in the best of times and the worst of times. Peace Corps is not an easy experience, and for most people it’s even harder to do alone. In my experience the most successful volunteers are humble and accept their need for contact and the importance of receiving help from others. They reach out for support when they need it and don’t always try to “tough it out.”

My friend and fellow volunteer Cathy wrote a beautiful post (one of many) about evacuation which has stuck with me because of it poignancy and beautiful images. In the post Cathy speaks about her last “yala yala,” (walk, in Bambara) with her friends at Tubani So. She describes the beauty of Mali, the connection between us volunteers and the heartbreak of leaving them, and Mali, so early. Cathy and I both met friends (including each other!) who we were looking forward to sharing the next two years of our service with. While we might not have been able to see each other every day, week or even month, that didn’t diminish the bond that we shared. Returning to Cathy’s post, I think that a strength of her artistic expression is her ability to use multiple images to recreate a sense of place and time. Her photographs have individual value but together (as a triptych, for example) they are much more expressive. The ensemble of Cathy’s images across the post conveys the meaning of moving through Mali, which is a deeper, more beautiful experience than any one snapshot. One of my regrets is having not taken more photographs in Mali, something I intended to do gradually over time. That was back when I thought I had all the time in the world, and the luxury of avoiding being labeled the only thing worse than “the rich Toubab,” which is “the rich Toubab whose amazing and expensive things I’ve seen.” How I regret that decision now!

It’s hard to express what the meaning of the connections between volunteers. Comrades, best friends, lovers, colleagues, partners, site mates, there are so many different words to describe the relationships we have with each other. And it’s dynamic, shifting over time and context. Volunteers in the same stage share an intimate knowledge and experience which years from now only they will be able to really understand. As my experience shows, there are significant differences in the lives of volunteers whose arrival is only months apart. So being in the same training class is an incredible bonding experience. You draw strength and support from each other, reassurance in times of doubt, calmness in times of stress and patience during moments of frustration. It’s nice to talk to someone about whatever’s on your mind and know that however strange your experience might be, you won’t be judged because they’ve lived through the same struggles (or at least something as challenging). As one of my close friends texted me one day out of the blue: “Id have to say that the first thing ill do in the states is try a hotdog with peanut butter. Seems like it could work.” And that’s one of the more normal-sounding texts I received. But we don’t bat an eye because we all know what sitting around in village in 115 degree weather with nothing to do but drink tea with a couple hundred Malians can do to your brain.

I would come to understand this support system even better over the following week at our COS conference, which is where my next post will begin.

The Long Wait is Over, Part 1

2012-05-02T10:21:00.001-07:00

On Friday the 13^th of April after evacuating to Ghana due to the security situation in Mali, we had a close of service ceremony during which all volunteers of Peace Corps Mali were given the status of Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. So how did we get to the point of prematurely ending the service of 180 volunteers? What does that feel like? To start to tell that story, this post is a bit longer than usual.

In my last post about Peace Corps Mali, The Long Wait, we were still in consolidation in our regional transit houses (mine was Segou). Days were filled with cooking, playing cards, watching TV shows, calling host families, planning to paint murals in the community, catching up on months of backlogged email, and anything else we could think of to pass the time. The heat was oppressive, and even with all the fans going in the house we were sweating through our clothes onto the chairs and couches. One particularly nice couch made of traditional bogolan fabric took on the permanent feel and smell of wetness. When allowed to we ventured out into the city in search of street food, cooking ingredients, a swim in the pool of a local hotel, a cold beer, or a decent restaurant meal. One night we had a dust storm and I awoke the next morning with a scratched up throat since I had been sleeping next to a window. I usually dealt with dust storms by a wrapping a long scarf around my head to protect my head, but because of reported violence toward light-skinned people (presumed to be Tauregs) I began to think twice about covering my face in public.

On Sunday April 1^st, shortly after my last post, we were told in a Peace Corps-wide message that we would be temporarily deconsolidating – we had the opportunity to return to our sites to touch base with our host communities, grab any essentials we hadn't packed for consolidation, and tie up any lose ends on our projects. The instruction was to return by Friday the 6^th. The message specifically indicated that cities north of the Niger River, where I and a handful of other volunteers had been working, were still off limits. It was one more nail in the coffin for us northerners, as it seem increasingly likely that even if Peace Corps stayed in Mali several of us would never be allowed to return to our sites.

I had taken care to prepare myself for this kind of news since sites were first announced in December – Niono was on the red line that delineated the off-limits zone for volunteers. Accordingly, I was instructed to not travel north of the city. I tried to be realistic about the fact that a lot could happen during my two years of service to cause Peace Corps to shift the line southward and thus requiring me to change my site. At the time I perceived the greatest threat to be kidnapping of Westerners since AQIM was very active. Despite my awareness of the risk, it was still rough though to realize that the mental preparations I had made for a possible site change were ending up serving a purpose, and it felt bizarre to find them useful not because of terrorist activity but because of a rebellion and military coup.

Leading up to the coup I never felt directly threatened at site. I felt well looked after by my host family and community. People always speculated that Niono was too big and too far South to be taken. That, of course, was before the fall of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu. Nevertheless, to my knowledge there is still no specific reason for rebels or other fighters to make the city a target and to date there has not been fighting in Niono. In the weeks leading up to the coup when there were smaller scale attacks by the MNLA up north in towns sometimes only 80km away we would regularly hear outrageous rumors that “rebels are going to attack Niono tomorrow.” In a city of 54,000 there will always be such rumors somewhere, and Malians like to have something to talk about over tea, so the gossip repeatedly got blown out of proportion. Another time a couple soldiers deserted from the army to go fight with the MNLA up north, or that’s how the story went. I learned during consolidation that there had been some stirrings in other villages about the possibility of a military coup because of growing dissatisfaction with president Touré's ability to calm the rebellion. I find it surprising and intriguing that I had never heard those rumors at my site.

Getting back to the story, we were not told whether this temporary deconsolidation indicated one way or another that we might be evacuated. Speculation ran wild in our minds for a few minutes as it always did after big news. During consolidation it was normal for people to announce to a silent room, for anyone to hear, why they felt that we would be evacuated (or not) based on the latest news they’d pulled off of the BBC. Other times we ran through in our minds how decision-making must work in Washington when dealing with coups. It was easy to make the argument that Peace Corps knew when they sent the deconsolidation email that evacuation would be a necessity. It gave us the feeling of "this is your last shot to see everyone again." In reality, however, there had been many previous developments which we thought indicated a shift toward evacuation but instead resulted in a prolongation of consolidation. Speaking with an RPCV from Madagascar online I learned that they had spent three weeks in consolidation before evacuating. It should be clear by now how important it was to us to be able to trust that our Country Director was working hard to keep Peace Corps in Mali while still being honest and forward with us.

A couple hours later we were informed, to our dismay and in direct contradiction to the deconsolidation email, that none of the volunteers in Segou region would be allowed to return to site. We were too close to the front lines and the situation was too unpredictable. The news set off a wave of frustration since many people had made travel plans and told their host families they would be returning. At the time of the announcement I had been playing around with the idea of going with my friend Lisa to her site in Markala, which was as close to Niono as I would have been able to get. I figured that if the situation calmed down while I was camped out there then it would put me in a better position to hop on a bus to Niono. So much for that thought ... none of us were allowed to go anywhere.

Later the next day we received another message informing us that all volunteers would be reconsolidated to Tubaniso, outside of Bamako. ECOWAS sanctions were going into effect and access to money was becoming unreliable so it was prudent to make sure that we were in a safe and sustainable situation. There were also rumors of buses being stopped by armed men in various locations across the country and a number of other worrying developments in the news. We made plans to leave Segou over the next two days.

A bright spot shone in these last hours in Segou, and that was the marriage of two volunteers in our region. Jason Bliss and Devon Larson had planned to get married in Bamako later in April. Now faced with the possibility of evacuation before their ceremony, they worked with our regional coordinator to get the schedule pushed up to April 4^th. A handful of volunteers stayed in Segou an extra day to attend the ceremony at the mayor’s office. I had the great pleasure of getting to know Jason just before the coup and it was heartwarming to be present at the ceremony. Afterward we had drinks at a local hotel we frequented, l’Auberge. Then we headed to the bus station to catch a ride to Bamako. Although the ride was uneventful many of us kept a nervous eye out the window just in case. I also think that in the back of our minds some of us we were already thinking in terms of our “lasts” – last public bus ride, last crazy food sellers, last 50 cfa water sachet, etc. We knew that once we got to Tubaniso our movements would likely be tightly restricted. We ran into a massive traffic jam coming into Bamako caused by a huge line of slow-moving trucks carrying a mix of what appeared to be construction materials and office supplies (chairs, wooden desks, etc.). I still have no idea what was going on there.

We arrived in Bamako a little numb from the long trip, waiting at the dark and deserted bus station for a Peace Corps vehicle to pick us up and take us to Tubaniso. A friend needed to use the sketchy bathroom and asked me to hold the broken door closed for him. Where we sat in the station a hundred meters from the bathrooms the smell of raw sewage seeped around the wall we leaned against with our bags. Suddenly, one of us got a text message from another volunteer saying that we had been given the order to evacuate. Now wanting multiple sources before we believed any important news we waited for further confirmation, which came shortly.

The tiny relief of having the seemingly interminable wait finally end was overshadowed by an enormous sense of loss. A thousand thoughts running through our minds. There were no immediate reactions; we were just in quiet, reflective shock. Some of us then got on the phone to contact loved ones both in Mali and abroad. After a few minutes some began softly crying, while others comforted them.

How do you react when you learn that after five intense months spent learning a language, a culture, technical skills, integrating into communities, planning projects, making huge personal sacrifices, enduring harsh weather and difficult living conditions, experiencing homesickness, culture shock and physical illness, you learn that you have to abruptly leave instead of spending the next twenty-two months doing the work that all these preparations were for? Mali tested us, forcing us to work hard for our successes and teaching us to become best friends with failure. And how about the love that you have for your host family at site, your host family from training, your Malian friends, your American friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, your pets, your favorite Malian food, your market ladies, your home that’s finally started to feel like home, your garden, your plans, your daily routines? Mali had become precious to us, more than a home to us.

I think it’s rare that any two volunteers are really in the same place at the same time in their service mentally, physically or emotionally. The beauty of it is that volunteers learn to be humble when with others and sensitive to the fact that we all have our own struggles and triumphs that we go through at different times. Circumstances and experiences vary greatly from site to site and volunteer to volunteer. On top of that, volunteers also arrive at different times, so while I was in Mali there were four groups of volunteers. Some, like me, had recently begun their service. Others were only two or three months away from the end of their service. I know volunteers who were almost finished with their full service yet felt like their work had only just begun. Some of them were planning to extend their service for an extra year. I also know volunteers who were tired of their service less than a year in, felt like their work was futile and were ready to leave. Living through a situation as challenging as Peace Corps can be as big an internal (mental, emotional, spiritually) struggle as it is an external struggle to do the job that you are assigned to do.

In the end this all means that every volunteer is dealing with evacuation in a slightly different way. The experience was intensely personal, while still creating intimate bounds between volunteers because of the experiences they did share. So dealing with all these mixed emotions is a complex and challenging process. It’s not something you "get over," since Mali is a place that stays with you, it's something that you process and integrate. I’m discovering every day new feelings about what it’s like to no longer be there. There is a healing and a grieving process to be gone through, and there is a lot to be learned from my experiences in Mali that will help to improve my future work. One of the things that I feel most right now is gratitude for having been in Mali for as long as I was.

Intervention, factions, and complicated aid

2012-04-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

In Bamako the situation may be a little calmer but there is an ongoing power struggle between the interim president Dioncounda Traore (supported by regional body ECOWAS) and the leader of the military coup, Amadou Sanogo. Sanogo's soldiers are still arresting opposition leaders and potential presidential candidates. He has also explicitly rejected the presence of any foreign troops on Malian soil (after previously calling for international assistance to defeat the rebels in the North), which is raising questions in light of the ECOWAS announcement that it plans to send troops to Mali. No specific mandate has been announced for the mission, meaning that it could be strictly to ensure a complete transition to civilian rule or it could include the retaking of the North. ECOWAS is clearly concerned about the territorial integrity of Mali, but is also unhappy with recent statements and actions by Sanogo who seeks to assert himself as a key player, hindering the transfer to complete civilian rule. According to a Reuters article, there are guesses that the ECOWAS force may number between 3000 and 5000 troops. I think that given the scale of the problems, if ECOWAS is going to successfully intervene in Mali 3000 is an absolute minimum level of support to assure political stability and/or retake the North. It seems to me that the previous offer of 2000 ECOWAS troops would at this point in time be inadequate to the point of being dangerous.

In the north, politics between the numerous armed groups operating in and around Timbuktu seem to be increasingly complicated. A new armed group, the National Liberation Front of Azawad (NLFA), took over at least part of Timbuktu last Thursday. After negotiations between the various groups in the city the NLFA shortly thereafter pulled out, declaring that fighting for control of Timbuktu would result in a counterproductive "bloodbath." The emergence of the group provides analysts with another unpredictable piece of the puzzle and yet more complex shifting of goals and alliances. As stated in an article by the AFP, the NLFA rejects the current actors in the conflict:

The group has declared it opposes both the secession of northern Mali -- as demanded by the Tuareg nomads, many of whom are hardened veterans of the Libyan conflict -- and the imposition of strict Islamic law.

I'm still waiting to find out where exactly the NLFA stands ideologically aside from its opposition to other groups, but I am struck by the assertion in the same article that despite being of fair size and well-armed, the group apparently deferred to AQIM in deciding to leave Timbuktu. For more information on the groups jockeying for power in and around Timbuktu, see IRIN's interview with three analysts who focus on the Tuaregs, providing some interesting perspectives.

Quick shifts in power, unstable alliances and the emergence of new armed groups are some of the results of having a lawless region as large as northern Mali, which some are now likening to a failed state. Other effects include increased difficulty in the coordination and distribution of aid. Even if with the help of ECOWAS the "capitals of the Azawad" are cleared of fighters, many will simply slip back into the desert and live to fight another day. This is a key reason why the past Tuareg rebellions have been so difficult, as they know the challenging terrain the best. Security for aid workers in the North was already in question in the months before the coup as carjackings, kidnappings, and other threats were commonplace. I imagine the different factions now operating in the North and the resources and experienced gained from the current period of unrest will result in a wider proliferation of arms over a longer period of time, making routine operations for groups like the ICRC and the WFP even more difficult. For a start the regional offices of almost all foreign organizations north of Mopti have been looted in the past weeks.

International aid organizations including the UN are announcing that their funding goals for the famine in the Sahel have been less than half met. This means that in addition to the added difficulty of instability in countries like Mali, there will be an even more significant gap than expected between the amount of aid needed and the amount which these organizations will able to provide to local populations. The number of displaced persons from the simultaneous threats of conflict, instability and food insecurity in Mali are now estimated at 260,000.

On Sahel Blog Alex Thurston has written another good summary of the Islamist aspect (and what that really means) of the power struggle in the North. His attention to the way that groups like Al Qaeda successfully implant themselves in communities by providing basic services recalls an interesting piece I blogged about in early December of last year. I certainly never imagined seeing AQIM have the chance to develop its methods on such a large scale as the city of Timbuktu. All the way over East Africa the practice is well underway as Al Qaeda teams up with the Islamist group Al Shabab to provide aid to displaced people in Somalia as shown in an eleven-minute video by the Guardian.

Looking for something to be optimistic about in the midst of all of this troubling news? On Tuesday a Swiss woman who was kidnapped in Mali by armed men was released unharmed. According to a Swiss website, no ransom was paid. The millions of dollars collected in ransom money over the past years has been fueling organizations like AQIM and allowing them to expand their operations, notably permitting them to take full advantage of the security vacuum in the north.

Bambara Word of the Day:
Basa = lézard/margouillat = agama lizard

For a photo of one, check out the website of Cathy Wu, my fellow volunteer from Mali. Basa are ubiquitous in Malian villages, climbing up walls, stealing food from kitchens and looking for other small things to eat. Some of them have rather dull shades of grey and brown while others display vibrant colors of blue, red and orange. Kids often like to kill them with slingshots and then roast them over a fire, using the meat to supplement their daily diet. One of our language instructors during PST described Basa as the "sweetest meat." I had planned to try one but never got the opportunity before leaving Mali.

The Long Wait

2012-04-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

The life of a Peace Corps volunteer is one filled with uncertainty. The application process itself often takes ten months or longer, and there is a seemingly endless list of technicalities for which applicants can be rejected. From prior criminal records to chronic health problems to a lack of technical skills, an applicant can be rejected for these or any of a slew of other more mundane reasons. Many volunteers spend as long as six months with little idea of where in the world they might be placed. French-speaking volunteers like myself occasionally find themselves assigned to Latin American countries, and not all volunteers have previous experience in the sectors they are assigned to. Sectors often change at the last minute, as did my own (from girls education and empowerment to small enterprise development) just two months before I was scheduled to leave. In other words, applicants are required to demonstrate flexibility and patience long before they are accepted in to Peace Corps.

Once arriving in country the next adventure for the would-be volunteers is pre-service training, or PST (note that PST differs from country to country, so the experiences I write about here refer only to Peace Corps Mali). Not all volunteers make it through the two months of living in a rural village while going through intensive language and cross-cultural training. In some earlier posts I’ve described the daily schedule which would be grueling in itself but becomes more challenging with the exhaustion from adapting to a new culture and climate, the culture shock and occasional homesickness. Failure to successfully complete PST means a trainee cannot become a volunteer. To make things even more interesting during the first month and a half of PST we did not know exactly what we were working toward. This is because the announcement of our sites (the community we are assigned to work with for the next twenty-four months) comes near the end of PST, so volunteers do not know what specific tasks they will have or what their host communities will be like. My site is a city with a population of 54,000 and I work at a well-established sewing center with 68 students. My friend Anthony went through the same training as me and is in the same sector, but lives in a rural village of only a few thousand people and has no formal workplace. I live in a two-story apartment building and he lives in a mud hut. While I am several hundred meters from a paved road with hourly transport to the regional capital, his commute to market requires a long and uncomfortable bike ride.

Once dropped at site after training for the first three months of service, volunteers sometimes discover that working with their homologue is difficult (the in-country counterpart identified by Peace Corps and the community to aid us in our work) perhaps because of language issues or maybe a conflict in schedule or personality. Other volunteers are supposed to work with an organization, association or cooperative, and upon arrival find that their skills are simply not well-suited to the workplace. In this situation the volunteer works independently and with Peace Corps to identify people they can work with and projects that they can successfully implement in their communities. Given the complex mix of cultures and languages in some areas, volunteers sometimes even find that the language they learned in PST is not the primary language spoken on their site. In extreme situations a volunteer’s site can be changed, but this is a drastic measure mostly reserved for security issues.

Lest I give the impression that this is the dominant experience of volunteers, I will specify that my host community, host family, service (workplace) and job are perfectly suited to my interests and abilities. I know other volunteers who feel the same way. Most often though it takes a while for volunteers to identify the needs of their community and how they can best meet them, which requires a good deal of patience and adaptation. The pace of life and work for a PCV is most often a slow one. Sometime this is imposed on us from Malian bureaucracy but it is just as often a result of our own strategies. For the first three months on site we are instructed to not do any major projects. Peace Corps does not want its volunteers to rush into as many large and expensive projects as possible. PCVs do not have easy access to large amounts of money and are encouraged to focus on small, sustainable projects that increase the capacities of the local population and meet the true needs of the community. Another component of our work is engaging in cultural exchange, which is an essential part of ensuring that our work is sustainable.

So you’d think that given all of this uncertainty we’re used to and flexibility that we’ve learned, PCVs are exactly the kind of people you’d want to go through a coup together. Based on my experience the last few days with the twenty other volunteers here that is the conclusion I’ve reached. We pride ourselves on being able to keep ourselves occupied, eat local food, take local transport, and deal with difficult climates. We think of ourselves as being able to live out of a small backpack, stuff sack or duffle bag. We also have the advantages of modern technology. At our current location we have wireless internet for our laptops and a desktop computer on which we can watch movies and TV shows. We can keep in touch with loved ones back home without skipping a beat. We recognize that life could be a lot worse, so we’re very grateful for what we have.

One thing that doesn’t change whether we live in 2012 or 1991 (the year of the last coup in Mali) is the uncertainty of whether or not we’ll be going back to site. Our emotional ties to our host communities are strong. We alternate between scouring the news for any sign of a tilt toward staying or leaving and giving up the guessing game because the future is so unpredictable. The decision of whether or not we stay is mostly in the hands of our esteemed Country Director and Peace Corps Washington. A Peace Corps evacuation from Mali would affect everyone in a different way. Some of us have been at site for only two and a half months, others a year, others around eighteen months. If the decision is made from the top to leave Mali each group of volunteers is likely to have a different set of options. There will likely be even more choices offered to volunteers who have just started our service. It is likely, although I cannot say for sure what will happen, that volunteers closer to the end of their service would be offered the opportunity to close their service earlier.

So why is this long post dedicated to putting in context what is a mere nine day wait? Especially in a regional capital with most of the amenities that we aren’t used to at site, and much better communication than volunteers had a mere decade ago? For a very simple reason – this is a very difficult and stressful situation for us volunteers despite all of our patience, flexibility and good coping mechanisms. It may only have been nine days since we arrived in our regional capital, but most of us would say it feels like we’ve been here weeks. We’re taking it in stride, but we didn’t join the Peace Corps to sit around watching movies. We came here to learn new languages, integrate into new communities, exchange ideas and help train Malians to meet the needs of their communities. We’ve built incredible emotional bonds with our host families and communities and are dedicated to our jobs. Our daily lives at site, spent far from the upscale neighborhood where we are currently residing, are entirely disrupted by recent events. The life we have here in our regional capitals is not the life we have chosen, and the life we have chosen back on our sites is hanging by a thread. That thread now risks being cut by a military dictator.

So for the time being we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing for the past nine days – keeping up regularly with the news, speculating about the future of the country, calling our homologues and host families, and passing the time however we can. As the major Northern capitals of Gao and Timbuktu have fallen to the rebels in the past 24 hours yet talks between the military junta and the regional body ECOWAS in the last few hours seem to be progressing, it’s hard to say what will happen next. The pressure is certainly on Sanogo, and ECOWAS has offered 2,000 troops to Mali if the military junta makes the right moves, namely handing back power. Mali desperately needs the manpower to quell the growing disorder in the North, so we are hoping that despite all odds the junta is able to see that the best thing for the country is for them to hand over power to a transitional government.

Update Friday March 30th

2012-03-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

A quick update of the whirlwind of important developments in Mali the past two days:

· Former President Amadou Toumani Touré broke his silence and showed he’s still alive by doing an interview with RFI (Radio France Internationale) which I translated here on this blog.

· ECOWAS (CEDEAO, In French) representatives Alassane Ouattara (Côte d’Ivoire), Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso), Thomas Boni Yayi (Benin), Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia) and Mahamadou Issoufou (Niger) were scheduled to come to Mali for a meeting with the leader of the junta, but the plane was turned back when protestors in favor of the junta spilled onto the runway at the airport. Some, including myself, believe that the junta could have prevented protestors from reaching the runway. This is one example of the growing visibility of support for the junta and resistance to international involvement in Mali’s internal affairs.

· Deliberating in Côte d’Ivoire, the disgruntled ECOWAS delegation handed down an ultimatum to the junta, giving it 72 hours to restore Mali’s constitution or else face a slew of unsavory consequences. These include the closing of borders and a diplomatic and financial embargo. This is some of the most worrying news we have heard, since it has the most potential to plunge the country into chaos if Sanogo does not concede. On the other hand, this could induce Sanogo to give in, although there is little reason to think he will compromise the demands of the junta and return constitutional order. Long queues at banks have started here.

· Protests in favor of and against the junta, involving thousands of people, have turned violent in Bamako in the past few days. Several people have been seriously injured. There is a large movement supporting Sanogo and rejecting interventionism, and more supporters on this side seem to come out every day.

· Journalists near Bamako, some foreign, have been arrested, threatened and released.

· Stability seems to prevail in the rest of the country (including where I am) except the North, where the situation is rapidly degenerating.

· The strategic Northern city of Kidal, which was under siege by Tuareg rebels, is said to have been taken by fighters from the Islamist movement Ansar Dine (which calls for the imposition of Sharia law in Mali). Fighters from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) may have been involved in recent rebel activities as well, according to a source from the AFP. Until now it has been difficult to confirm to what degree these groups were collaborating. The Tuareg rebels (the most numerous and best-armed of the groups) had previously denied collaborating with the other two. There now appears to be evidence that they are supporting each other military, which would significantly increase their capacities. I will be very interested to have confirmation of the relationship between these groups over the coming days. The taking of Kidal opens up the road to Gao and Timbuktu and puts these cities in real danger. So far the junta seems to be decidedly ineffective at managing the situation in the North, ironic since this was a central part of their justification of the coup.

· In response to these advances by armed groups in the North, Sanogo has apologized on state TV to the delegation from ECOWAS and has requested military aid. It’s hard for me to say what ECOWAS will do at this point, since the stakes are indeed high in the North. The question seems to be who will give in first.

So what does all this mean for us volunteers? Do we stay or do we leave? For the time being there is no official indication one way or the other.

Also, added bonus: Another blogger has written a post on the subject of Twitter in the first days of the coup, drawing on some of the same information as mine.

Interview with ATT - English Translation

2012-03-28T13:09:00.001-07:00

Below is one of the first interviews with President Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali. He has since revealed through AFP that his location is, indeed, Bamako. Once again the translation is my own and I do not have any relationship with RFI. See the original interview in French here.

I personally find ATT's responses appealing. It's been a challenge for the Malian people to not have news from him since last Wednesday. The humility in his rhetoric emphasizing that this is not about him, but the good of the country, is on the right track since an unfortunate percentage of the population believes he thinks too much of himself and wanted to seek a third term. However, much of the Malian population (especially the military) has heard enough of this rhetoric and is no longer sympathetic to ATT being humble and self-effacing. They want results. As a vehicle of public relations, this interview, to be sure, doesn't have the necessary elements to win over any of his opponents.

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Amadou Toumani Touré at RFI (Radio France Internationale) : “The most important for me today is not myself”

The President of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, of whom we have been almost without news since the coup d’état the 21^st of March, gave an interview Wednesday with RFI. He confirms that he is in Mali, in good health and free. And he calls on his compatriots to support Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) proposed exit plan for the crisis.

Amadou Toumani Touré: I would like first of all to make a small statement: I have followed with much interest the conclusions at the end of the extraordinary summit of the ECOWAS, held Tuesday in Abidjan. I sign on completely to the proposals made by the heads of state for a way out of the crisis in our country. That includes the return of normal constitutional order, which is a cardinal point. And that will without a doubt allow us to avoid any adventure. That will also happen by putting back in place the institutions of the Republic which were democratically chosen by the sovereign people of Mali. The “ATT plan” is without a doubt the simplest. Two months away from the end of my mandate, I remain available and above all understanding of any solution moving in the direction of pacification and the safeguarding of Malian democracy. Democracy which, with so many other Malians, so many other democrats, I contributed to installing. I ask my Malian compatriots and the friends of our countries to support our escape from this crisis. Mali does not at all deserve this period of crisis.

RFI: Mr. President, it’s been 7 days since we’ve had news from you. How are you? What is the state of your health?

ATT: I am doing very well. The only thing I’m missing is a little exercise. But I am doing very well and my family is too.

RFI: Where are you currently? Are you still on Malian territory? In Bamako or elsewhere in the country?

ATT: I am in Mali. In my home, Mali.

RFI: Are you being detained by mutineers or free of movement?

ATT: I am not being detained by mutineers. I am free in my country.

RFI: But you are not in Bamako?

ATT: I told you that I am in Mali, and the next time we see each other I will tell you where I have been this whole time.

RFI: How do you view the decision of the ECOWAS which involves restoring your functions as president of the republic?

ATT: I say that the most important for me today is not myself. I am two months away from the end of my mandate. I think that the most important today is, based on consensus, with the whole of the Malian political class and all of the current parties, and all the heads of state of the ECOWAS, to work out an escape from this crisis. I think that the most important thing today, is not ATT, it is not men, what is important is democracy, the institutions, Mali.

RFI: So you are ready to leave? To pull back?

ATT: The question has not yet been asked, but know that, 22 years ago I thought myself useful to my country. 22 years later, I am still here, facing this crisis. For me it’s Mali first and Mali before all.

RFI: Do you still consider yourself President of Mali?

ATT: I do not want to enter into that debate. I consider myself first as a Malian citizen, as a democrat. Today what is important for me, is not my pain, that is nothing. But what pains me, is the situation I see in my country.

RFI: A new constitution has just been presented by the junta which says it will not run in the next elections. Does that seem acceptable to you?

ATT: I think that it is not really for me to decide. The heads of state of the ECOWAS will come to Bamako, they will discuss with each other, and that is the most important.

RFI: Let’s return to the day of Wednesday March 21^st. How did you leave the presidential palace? How did that day go for you?

ATT: I spent the whole day under fire virtually since 16:00. Tank fire, fire from armored vehicles, all kinds of fire aimed at my office, my house and my family. And to say conclusively, nothing is left, everything is burned up. But for an old commando, there is always a way of getting out of a difficult situation, and that’s what I did.

RFI: But did you deliberately ask the presidential guard to not counter, to not fight back?

ATT: In no way would I ever wish that the soldiers of the Malian army fire on other Malian soldiers. For me who is also soldier and officer of this army, you can imagine that I would never have wished confrontations between the armed forces to protect a man. The most important today, is a call to unity, a call to cohesion to face up to all the challenges that this country will face.

RFI: Are you still looked after by some loyal supporters?

ATT: I couldn’t tell you. Old soldiers, there are some military secrets that I keep for myself. But the most important is that I am doing well and I am in the Republic of Mali.

RFI: Are you in favor of a military intervention as the ECOWAS has suggested if the mutineers plan for exiting the crisis is refused?

ATT: I will not respond to such a question. I have not been officially contacted and I am not comfortable responding to questions that I was not asked.

Translation and Commentary of SlateAfrique Interview

2012-03-28T10:02:00.001-07:00

SlateAfrique frequently has relevant, up-to-date and insightful articles on West Africa. The below interview with André Boureot is no exception. In order to share it with my English speaking readers, I decided to translate the article. You can find the article, which is now do days old, in the original French here.

Please note that the translation of this text is my own and is solicited neither by SlateAfrique nor by the André Bourgeot. Names and acronyms have been, where applicable, changed from their original French versions to their English equivalents. Any mistakes in translation are my own, but note that I did not seek to correct grammar or punctuation in the text. My primary goal was to make minimal changes so as to best communicate what I interpreted André Bourgeot to mean. Occasionally, where meaning was not at stake, I also sought to improve the readability of the interview for an English-speaking audience.

I have highlighted in bold what I consider to be some of the most important ideas expressed in the interview, although this does not necessarily I agree with them. I see Bourgeot’s analysis as one that accurately acknowledges some of the worst outcomes that could result from the coup, notably chaos within the country and regional instability. I see these outcomes as highly unlikely at this point of time, especially as by all measures the situation within Mali has only grown more calm. As I think Bourgeot would agree, however, the current calm says little about how the situation may change in the coming days. The seed of instability has already been sewn with the takeover, and that seed needs to be dug up fast before it can start to grow.

It appears that the international community is beginning to mount the pressure on Sanogo and his comrades (notably with international condemnations and the suspension of aid), but it is still probably too early to say what success these efforts will have. Fortunately the United States has not pulled its humanitarian aid to Mali, which would have been one more element contributing to a humanitarian disaster in the coming months as we get deeper into hungry season in Mali. It is assured that if still in power the military junta will do worse than an elected government at coordinating the necessary aid.

I agree with the ideas that both AQIM and the rebellion in the North benefit directly and immediately from the military junta. This seems to me a major failing of the putschists. They may not have intended to, but they have provided these two armed groups with a golden opportunity to make large advances. It is difficult for me to assess the extent of the disruption in the chain of command and the degree to which desertion and subordination are an issue, but the looting in Bamako is an indication.

Bourgeot’s statement about military intervention should be taken very cautiously. Not many people are currently speaking of the possibility of military intervention because 1) at the moment there is no need for it, 2) many Malians would oppose it, 3) given Malian historical and cultural tendencies it’s plausible that things will probably get worked out without much violence. At any rate somebody was going to bring it up, especially in the context of recent debates about interventionism, so here are my thoughts on it. I think a confluence of potential forces (instability within the junta, no enforcement of laws, famine, fuel shortages, rising prices, worsening of the rebellion, greater threats from AQIM, widespread violence) could lead in a worst-case scenario in which developed nations consider military intervention in Mali. This is a longshot from my perspective and an approach to be avoided at all costs.

Lastly, note the wealth of contradictions that Bourgeot has highlighted in the situation and which he blames on a lack of strategy. The putschists declared a democratic basis to their movement, yet one of their first actions was to overthrow the democratically elected government and suspend the constitution (they have since drafted a new constitution). They claim to want to support the army, yet their actions directly benefit the enemy. They seem to want nothing but a complete military defeat of the rebels yet also call for negotiation with them.

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Mali “The junta has no strategy”

Anthropologist André Bourgeot, director emeritus of research at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) and specialist in the Sahara/Sahel region decodes for SlateAfrique the stakes of the Malian crisis after the March 22nd coup d’état against President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT).

Update March 27th : Captain Amadou Sanogo, leader of the military junta in power in Mali, has called on Tuareg fighters who are advancing in the North of the country to end their campaign. “We ask them to end the hostilities and come to the negotiating table as soon as possible,” declared the leader of the Junta before adding, “Everything is negotiable, except for the territorial integrity and unity of our country.”

SlateAfrique – The junta that instigated a coup d’état against the Malian president stands for the departure of Amadou Toumani Touré and free elections in Mali. What is the legitimacy of this?

André Bourgeot – No coup d’état is legitimate. It is a step backward from democracy. Mali has regressed backward by twenty years. I’d like to emphasize that today is March 26, 2012, and that the 26th of March 1991 the Malian dictator Moussa Traoré was himself overthrown. An overthrow that caused the death of more than 300 Malians in Bamako. No junta in power can have legitimacy.

At the same time, in light of what has happened since last week, the junta is very isolated from the international community, from Malian politics. The only party that supports the junta is that of Oumar Mariko, leader of SADI (African Solidarity for development and independence), as well as the HCIM (High Islamic Council of Mali). But the balance of power will rapidly evolve in the hours and days to come.

SlateAfrique – Why did the soldiers turn against the regime?

André Bourgeot – The reasoning given by Captain Sanogo, leader of the junta, was that the Malian army did not have the necessary means to fight the rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA), whose objective is the independence of the regions of Northern Mali and which would cause a division of the territory of the country. They directly accuse the head of state and a part of the army of having not given the necessary means to fight against this liberation movement. The absence of military equipment, but also a lack of food, has meant the soldiers attacked by Tuaregs have been failed.

Where are the superior officers?

SlateAfrique – Does public opinion support the junta?

André Bourgeot – One must distinguish between supporting the junta and supporting the defense of the homeland. One part of civil society is financially aiding the soldiers of the Malian army invested in the protection of the homeland, threatened by territorial division. That does not mean a support of the junta. The situation is complicated. Because some say that they are aiding the homeland and others the junta. On the whole, one cannot say that the junta enjoys popular support.

SlateAfrique – Does the junta have the support of high-ranking officers? One has the impression that the coup happened without senior officers. We are witnessing a revolt rooted in opposition toward the higher ranks seen as unable to manage the crisis in the North.

André Bourgeot – If we look at the composition of the junta: one junior officer, Captain Sanogo. The spokesperson is a lieutenant so another junior officer; a sergeant-major, and a corporal. Among these four there is not a single superior officer. That shows the important cleavages within the army, between junior officers, officers, men of rank in relation to the high ranks of the army (commanders, generals, colonels). This is an important element. For the reason that it raises the question: What has happened to ATT? Is he in the hands of the junta or is he protected by the cadres of the Malian army composed of superior officers, of parachutists, since ATT himself was a member of the parachutists.

Finding ATT changes the situation. It is not by chance that we do not know where ATT is or who he is with. Information has a very important political function. In general, there is an important cleavage in the army, which thus is no longer a national army in the republican sense of the term.

SlateAfrique – What is the political/military strategy of the junta?

André Bourgeot – It seems clear to me that the junta doesn’t have a strategy. It lives day to day. That’s where the disorderly and anarchical aspect of their actions comes from. On the other hand, the leader of the junta does not have a lot of authority over the men of rank. As proof, the behavior of some soldiers in Bamako that participated in looting. The Captain intervened, but he wasn’t followed. What real authority does he have over the soldiers who support his action? There are significant contradictions.

A Regional Crisis to Fear

SlateAfrique – Can this junta keep itself in power?

André Bourgeot – It’s searching for itself. There is no strategy. On one hand, we are still in uncertainty, beyond the declarations of intentions of Captain Sanogo. On the other hand, the balance of power inside the army does not seem to me to be in favor of Captain Sanogo. That does not mean that there will be an attempt at a counter-coup. But, take note of the isolation of the junta in the international sphere as much as within the country.

SlateAfrique – Can the international community influence the junta?

André Bourgeot – Hard to say. If the sanctions imposed by the international community take immediate effect, I do not see how the junta can keep itself in power. But if it does not stay in power there will be a period of violence. That is worrisome. Except if Captain Sanogo shows a great civic and patriotic responsibility. “I am unpopular, I’m going.” But I do not know of any historical examples of that situation.

SlateAfrique – Can Mali, being one of the African countries that receives the most aid, do without international aid?

André Bourgeot – The withdrawal of aid can only put concrete pressure on the junta and the Malian population, in a context where there is a lack of food and oil. That could cause a drift toward an anarchical process. Faced with broad-based chaos in Mali, the international community could decide to intervene militarily. These hypotheses should not be ignored. At the moment the chaos is in the North, but it could spread to the rest of the country and its neighbors. A regional crisis is to be feared.

SlateAfrique - Do the putschists want to fight the Tuareg rebels?

André Bourgeot – The coup instigated by the junta benefits the MNLA, in a context where one no longer sees coherence and cohesion in the Malian army. One no longer sees how authority is exercised. The MNLA advances and today surrounds the city of Kidal. This coup benefits the rebels.

There is a series of contradictions on the part of the putschists. They legitimize the coup by proclaiming more means for fighting against the rebellion. At the same time, they keep a front of conciliation by saying that they want to negotiate with the rebels. But on what basis? One does not see what the strategy of the leader of the mutineers is for reaching a cease-fire. The MNLA accepts negotiation only on the basis of the independence of the Azawad.

Fighting or negotiating with the Tuareg Rebellion

SlateAfrique – Does the coup testify to the failure of ATT’s policies?

André Bourgeot – Yes, the large majority of the regions in the North were a lawless zone where the state did not exercise its sovereignty. Was there the political will with the head of state and the Malian political class to resolve the situation in the Northern regions? That’s the question raised by part of the population. It’s also the rhetoric used by the junta to legitimize its action. Except that the coup does not correspond to the current needs and leads to a step back for democracy.

SlateAfrique – Did the fall of Muammar el-Qaddafi exacerbate the crisis in the Sahel and in Mali?

André Bourgeot – Unarguably, the prevailing situation in Mali is one of the important consequences of the Anglo-French military intervention, then that of NATO, in Libya, at the conclusion of Resolution 1973 of the United Nations Security Council, the objective of which was to destroy the Jamahiriya. Now, we are living the consequences of that situation. When the balance of power was in favor of the Libyan rebels, military aresenals proliferated throughout the whole of Libyan territory. An important part of the fighters making up the rebels of the Azawad come from Libya.

SlateAfrique – The other actor in the destabilization of Mali: Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)?

André Bourgeot – The primary objective of the rebels of the MNLA is to fight the Malian state and not the jihadists of AQIM. Which bolsters the position of jihadists in the region. The Malian state has not itself had a firm enough policy against the jihadists. Can we thus infer that there is an arrangement between the state and the jihadists? We can’t say. One passes from a lawless zone to a mocked “zone where all is legal” in Northern Mali. Any jihadist movement in the Sahara keeps ties with drug, arms and human traffickers. It’s all tangled up.

Living and Tweeting the Coup

2012-03-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

So far the experience of being in Mali while the country undergoes the transition to a military junta has been uneventful. There have not been significant shortages of any of the basic necessities, although I hear conflicting reports from Bamako about whether there is truly a fuel shortage there. Up North, transport has not been significantly interrupted and rumors I initially heard of banditry on the roads have yet to be confirmed. The little unrest and violence there has been was in Bamako and far North of where volunteers are. Certain precautionary measures have been taken by Peace Corps which we have been asked to not discuss publicly online. Suffice to say that it’s more or less the kind of precautions that you would expect from the United States government.

The military junta has announced that government services will start up again and the borders and banks will begin functioning again Tuesday (tomorrow). We have all been anticipating this moment, which could lead to drastic changes in the current situation for better or for worse. The ease with which the soldiers took over and the fragility of basic services in Mali are a sharp reminder of how layered and profound the challenges of development are. When a country is weak economically often the safeguards that we are used to in developed countries cease to exist. For the time being Mali is incredibly fortunate that the current military leaders seem have eschewed violence, although it is worth noting that Malian culture on the whole shies away from violence.

What happens from here for us volunteers? There are a number of possibilities, some of which involve us staying in Mali and some of which don’t, depending on the evolution of the political and security situation here. It’s hard to know until we’ve seen how the next few days play out. However, Mali has a lot to work out before volunteers like us can go back to business as usual.

The best-case scenario is that President Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT) will somehow be reinstated as president and things will get smoothed over. Most of us think but this is a remote possibility. For one, mutineers aren’t normally the type to willingly return power to the very person they overthrew. It’s also worth noting that the location of ATT is still unknown and practically the last anyone has heard from the office of the President was last Tuesday on Twitter when the official account of the government denied that a coup was underway : “@Bambyam Pourriez-vous vérifier votre source ? Il n'y a pas de coup d'état au Mali. Il y a juste une mutinerie dans la garnison de Kati.” My own translation of this official response to a question by another Twitter user is as follows: “@Bambyam Would you please check your source? There is no coup d’état in Mali. There is just a mutiny in the garrison at Kati.” Three minutes later came another Tweet, “Pour preuve, j'emets du Palais de la Présidence. Des déserteurs et d'autres militaires qui ne veulent pas aller au front se sont mutinés.” In English, “As proof, I’m broadcasting from the Presidential Palace. Some deserters and other soldiers who do not want to go to the front lines have mutinied.” Shortly afterward the palace was stormed by soldiers. The very last tweet from the account announced that the defense minister was neither injured nor killed and continuing his day as normal. Since that message at 17:24 last Tuesday, the account has been silent.

Tweets from Mali

It’s an odd experience to be reading and sending out updates from Twitter about a military coup in the country I’m living in. Not long before my departure for Mali I was scouring Twitter myself for firsthand updates on crisis zones across Africa and the Middle East. Now I’m occupying both roles – sending updates from the ground and reading updates from other people in country (as well as using it to find international news reports). To be clear, I don’t see Twitter having anywhere near the pivotal role in Mali that it has during other recent periods of crisis such as the Arab Spring. There are relatively few Twitter users here. Thankfully, so far there has been virtually no violence resulting directly from the coup. It follows that the information spreading online does not have the same critical nature that it did in other recent cases. Also, all other forms of communication are currently up and running in Mali, so Malians have not needed to rely on Twitter. There is also still a substantial international media presence here. However, given my current position with internet access Twitter has been a valuable tool for me as a one-stop location to get the most up-to-date information from international press, independent journalists and eyewitnesses. I have been happy to find that there has been a tendency in discussions on Mali to treat rumors as rumors and encourage fact-checking.

A lot of observers on Twitter responded to the evolving situation with humor. Shortly after the now infamous Tweet denying a coup attempt, another Twitter user, Andrew Stroehlein, posted “Is this a first? denying a coup attempt via #twitter?” Later JusticeJFK was one of many who brought up the questionable timing of the takeover when he wrote “#Mali Ceci est l'un des coups d'état les + ridicules que l'Afrique ait connu. Que promettront les putschistes? Une élection? C dans 1 mois!” (#Mali This is one of the silliest coup d’états that Africa has ever known. What will the mutineers promise? An election? It’s in a month!). One of the first actions of the mutineers was to take over the national TV/Radio station, ORTM. The station initially went dark and when it came on again for the first time Wednesday evening the audience was met with a message saying to stay tuned for an “impending military announcement,” as Malian music played in the background. Shortly after midnight, user Ogobere wrote “Bon ils se décident ou pas? Ils ont presque fini tout le répertoire de la musique malienne. #Mali” (Well will they decide or won’t they? They’ve almost finished the whole repertoire of Malian music. #Mali). User tbbBaseball, perhaps a more casual observer, wrote with equal sarcasm, “Finally I win a pool! I picked Mali in my coup d'etat pool at work #marchmadness.” Lastly, @DoudouDoucanss saw a possible French connection with the coup and “Ba alors Sarkozy y'a pas de pétrole au Mali tu t'en mêle pas ? #JeDemande,” (Hey Sarkozy there’s no oil in Mali why don’t you stay out of it?).

On a more serious note, as expected there are increasing reports of the Tuareg rebels in the North taking advantage of the uncertainty and instability to make military advances. A worrying prospect is that the new military leaders may increase their reliance on irregular militias. Such militias have been successfully used in defeating past Tuareg rebellions, but have also been repeatedly accused of human rights abuses. My host family and others on my site speak of the fear inspired by these militias and their massacres and brutal methods. As the already thinly-stretched military struggles to defend the porous North and now their power base in Bamako as well (to which enormous energy will be devoted) it seems plausible that Sanogo and the junta will welcome any help they can get from these militias. This may lead to a dangerous devolution of the situation up North, involving even more displacement of civilians, further proliferation of arms and harsher fighting tactics used on all sides.

Want to follow the updates on your own? Just search for #Mali on Twitter, and follow my updates by searching @scochrane89. For reliable and professional coverage of what's going on here I also recommend following the writings of journalists Martin Vogl (@martinvogl) and Peter Dörrie (@peterdoerrie). For consistent firsthand accounts from Bamako @SoulBamako Tweets in English and French and @philinthe_ tweets in English.

Political Unrest in Mali

2012-03-22T04:00:00.001-07:00

Wednesday morning in the city of Kati, at a military camp about 15
kilometers outside of the Malian capital of Bamako, reactions to a
speech by the defense minister turned sour. From what I've heard the
camp is home to a prestigious military academy (unconfirmed) and that
the Minister's address to recruits there succeeded not at reassuring
them but angering them. Soldiers reportedly began demanding better
munitions to use in fighting the current rebellion in Northern Mali.
As the Minister left his car was stoned. I have not found an account
of the transition from this event to the subsequent military takeover
of state TV and attacks on the presidential palace. Somewhere along
the way a number of trucks filled with soldiers entered Bamako and
began taking control of the city.

According to the perpetrators of the takeover, they will keep power
only until the country is "reunified" and there is no longer a threat
to the "integrity" of the country, references to the threats posed by
the secessionist Northern rebels. The danger I see in this statement
is that there is no indication that these goals can be achieved soon.
Ousting President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT, as he is known in Mali)
does not make the army better trained or equipped, and the rebels will
always have the advantage of their intimate knowledge of the Saharan
terrain. The National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and
State (CNRDR), as the soldiers have named themselves, has said that
when their goals are accomplished power will be handed over to a
democratically elected president. I have a hard time envisioning the
CNRDR satisfactorily achieving their goals of uniting and stabilizing
the country anytime soon.

As for ATT himself, unconfirmed rumors abound as to his current
whereabouts, but since there has been no announcement by the leaders
of the coup it can be presumed that they have not located him.

I have spoken with several other volunteers across Mali. From my
personal experience and the accounts of my friends the vast majority
of Malians are indifferent to the events of the past twenty four
hours. Daily life will continue here until supply chains are disrupted
or unrest spreads. We're far away from Bamako and there's a lot of
work to be done to earn the daily "dollar" and cook the rice and
sauce. Attacking the presidential palace doesn't change these basic
needs. We have been instructed by our administration to sit tight and
wait for further information and instructions. While for the moment
many Malians appear unaffected, volunteers are already getting
headaches thinking about how to do deal with projects planned for the
next few days. As volunteers the current political situation and its
future repercussions has the potential to seriously disrupt our work
the longer it continues.

The soldiers who currently control state TV and perhaps most of Bamako
have declared suspension of state institutions and the constitution
and have established a curfew. I hear a lot of reports that gunfire in
Bamako is violent and is actually celebratory or is meant to encourage
people to stay indoors. To specify, I am nowhere near Bamako and
haven't heard a single gunshot.

It is important to note the time of all of this – Malian presidential
elections are scheduled for a little over a month from now. I find it
sad that some members of the military feel the situation is so dire
that they must preempt the elections and disrupt twenty years of
stable democracy (Mali is often cited as an exception to the power
struggles, unfair elections and undemocratic transitions that plague
West Africa). Since I don't currently see many signs of this being an
outright power move by an individual or group, more likely legitimate
frustrated soldiers, I take the timing of the action as an interesting
statement of urgency and/or a lack of hope that the election planned
for April 29 would produce a significant enough shift in military
strategy. Note that there is no doubt that ATT would have stepped down
peacefully and encourage fair, democratic elections to the best of his
ability. I do not disagree that the soldiers have lacked adequate
equipment and training – there is evidence to support these claims. I
find it difficult to believe, however, that the current movement will
bring more good than harm to Mali.

That's all for now – I'll try to keep updating by blog and Twitter as
the situation evolves.

Introduction to the Sahel Food Crisis

2012-03-06T09:25:00.001-08:00

Below are excerpts from the United Nations Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publication "Emergency Relief
Coordinator's Key Messages on the Sahel," released February 10, 2012.
Despite being a few weeks old, the text still gives a succinct summary
of some of the food security challenges faced by the region I am
working in.

"Across the Sahel region of western Africa, a combination of drought,
poverty, high grain prices, environmental degradation and chronic
underdevelopment is expected to plunge millions of people into a new
food and nutrition crisis this year. Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania,
Niger, Senegal and Chad, as well as northern Cameroon and northern
Nigeria are all likely to be affected. For many people, the crisis has
already begun. An estimated 10 million people are struggling to get
enough to eat, including 5.4 million in Niger. More than 1 million
children under the age of five are at risk of severe acute
malnutrition.

Last year, despite warnings, governments and aid organizations did not
respond early enough in the Horn of Africa. This year, in the Sahel,
early warning must be followed by early action ... Early action means
prepositioning emergency food assistance, supporting blanket feeding
for malnourished children, and making available life-saving treatment
for acutely malnourished children. Early funding will be necessary to
secure the resources required. Several Sahelian governments have put
forward plans to deal with the crisis at hand, and build resilience to
avert future emergencies. The humanitarian response is only one part
of a longer-term comprehensive strategy - involving local communities,
governments, regional organizations, private businesses, development
agencies and many other players … which will result in building the
longer-term resilience of vulnerable communities.

Insecurity is making the work of humanitarian organizations more
difficult. A growing rebellion in northern Mali has forced many
humanitarian actors to leave the region and thousands of people have
fled the conflict, resulting in internal displacement in Mali and a
growing refugee caseload in neighboring countries. In addition, arms
and drug trafficking have led to a rise in banditry in many parts of
the region. For the most part, aid agencies continue to be able to
operate and reach people in need, but the risks need to be managed
carefully.

Across the region, international agencies have called for more than US
$720 million to support national efforts to respond to the crisis. To
date, donors have provided $135 million, and relief activities have
already begun. But we need more resources now. To prevent a
large-scale crisis, we need to act now."

OCHA is a United Nations office that seeks to "mobilize and coordinate
effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with
national and international actors."

As the current hungry season progresses I will continue to update this
blog with my own experiences and observations related to the food
crisis and its management.