Amanda's in Peace Corps Mali!: Greetings from Mali!

To the Students of Ms. Keenan’s class at Episcopal School of Acadiana:

Greetings from Mali! My name is Amanda Addison and I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Bougoula, Mali.

I know that Ms. Keenan has told you some about Mali and the work I do here, and I thought it would be fun to start a blog where I can tell y’all a little about my daily life here. Here is some basic information about Mali:

Mali is a country in West Africa

Unlike most countries in West Africa, Mali is landlocked. This means that Mali has no direct access to the ocean. Without any access to the ocean Mali has a difficult time exporting goods to other countries. As a result, Mali is poorer than its neighboring countries on the coast.

Most of West Africa was colonized by the French, so in many countries, like Mali, the official language is French. In these francophone countries, most children grow up speaking a local language and then learn French in school. French is the language used in school, college and for doing business in the big cities.

Mali received its independence from France in 1960.

This is the Malian flag

It is called “the vert-jaune-rouge.” Interestingly, when there is a rainbow here the people call it a “vert-jaune-rouge” also rather than an arc-de-ciel. This is because the colors green, yellow and red are prominent in a rainbow and it resembles their national flag.

The capital of Mali is Bamako, and it is a big, bustling place.

The North of Mali is the Sahara Desert

But the South, where most of the people live, is the Sahel. In this satellite picture of Mali you can see how the country changes from desert in the north, to green and lush in the far south.

The Sahel is the area on the edge of the Sahara Desert, which is very dry during the hot season but becomes green during the rainy season.

Here there are a lot of plains and fields and people are able to farm millet, peanuts, potatoes, corn, cotton, rice and black eye’d peas.
This is what millet looks like:

In the west of Mali there are also large gold mines.

Over 90% of people in Mali live in the southern region of the country, because it is an easier life and they are able to grow food.

5-10% of Malians are nomadic, which means that they have no fixed home and move according to the seasons from place to place in search of food, water, and grazing land. The build temporary houses which look like this:

And up in the North you can often see them on their camels, moving around in search of water and food for their cattle.

In Mali there are many ethnic groups and more than 40 spoken languages.
90% of the people here are Muslim, 4% are Christian and 6% are Animist.

Animist people believe in many gods, and many people in Mali still make sacrifices to ensure good farming seasons and rain. Although the majority of people are not animist they still continue with many ancient animist traditions. One of these traditions is telling the future by throwing shells:

In my village all of the people are from the Bambara ethnic group. This is the majority ethnic group in Mali, and they speak the language Bambara. The people in my village are Muslim.
I love living in my village and I have learned so much here! I have learned to speak Bambara and I live in a mud hut. The Chief of the village is my host father.

I also wear Malian clothes almost everyday. Islam here is not very conservative, but in the small towns like mine women don’t wear pants and wear a scarf on their head like this:
This is a picture of me with some of my host family.